She nodded, but didn’t speak.
‘Okay. Backing Chlorus’s story would get Ligurius off the hook where I was concerned, no problem. He wasn’t married, he lived alone, so there’d be no other way I could check up. Except via the neighbour, of course. There was that possibility, sure, but it was a risk he had to take, and unless for some reason I chose to disbelieve both him and Chlorus - and why should I do that? - he reckoned he was safe enough, even if I did get round to asking his laundry pal. One evening’s very like another, especially after a few days’ve passed, unless there’s anything to mark it out, like a murder, say. And when I talked to him the guy didn’t mention the murder at all. I should’ve noticed that, and wondered why not; after all, finding your boss half eaten in an eel tank is news your average punter would be itching to pass on to a mate over an evening jug. Only I didn’t do either.’ Yeah, right; moron wasn’t the half of it!
She smiled. ‘No. Gaius didn’t mention Father’s death at the time, for obvious reasons. Then, for the reason you’ve given, he was very careful not to be the first to introduce the subject. His neighbour hardly ever goes out, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t hear of it at all. Which, from what you say, he evidently still hasn’t. Being asked to back my brother’s story was a godsend for Gaius.’
‘Except that when he had time to think things over Chlorus began to smell a rat. Ligurius didn’t owe him anything, they weren’t pals and they didn’t even like each other; so why should he agree to lie on his behalf so easily? Especially where a murder was concerned. Chlorus knew damn well that Ligurius hadn’t been with him that evening like he’d told me, so as things developed he started wondering what he had been doing. And the answer, naturally, was killing Murena.’
‘Yes.’ Penelope’s face was expressionless. ‘Titus...broached the subject with him in private two days after my father’s death. Delicately: Titus had no liking for Father anyway, remember, and he couldn’t care less who had murdered him. Also, I suspect, he rather hoped the crime would be fixed on Gellia or Aulus, and that would have been to his advantage. Having Gaius accused and condemned wouldn’t have benefited him at all, quite the reverse.’ She half-smiled. ‘My brother, Corvinus, was not a nice man. Gaius killed him, yes, but it was in pure self-defence, and he was no loss. Believe me, I’d known him all my life.’
‘Yeah.’ Well, I let that one go: they don’t describe Cupid as blind for nothing. And, again, she had a point. Philippus had been right; that whole family was rotten. Even Penelope had a callous streak a mile wide, and she was the best of them. ‘Now tell me about your husband. Tattius.’
For the first time, she seemed genuinely reticent. If the word wasn’t inappropriate, I’d’ve said she was embarrassed.
‘Decimus was a mistake.’
Yeah, well, I’d guessed as much myself; but the lady was telling this, not me, and I owed her the chance to do it in her own way. I waited.
‘Gaius thought that with my father and brother dead he’d have’ - she hesitated - ‘he would have a chance of our finally marrying. He’d killed twice already. My father’s death, as I told you, was an accident. Titus’s was a necessity. The third...well, the third would be for the good of both of us.’ The tears came again. She made no attempt to hide them, and her face didn’t change. It was still hard as marble. ‘He shouldn’t have done it, Corvinus. It ruined everything. He was a silly, silly man.’
Right. Maybe Ligurius had got a bit too blasé about killing, too, but I didn’t say that. The lady had enough problems without me adding to them. ‘Would you have told me?’ I said. ‘If I hadn’t come round today?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think I could have gone that far. Not even to save this Trebbio. All the same, I’d never have married Gaius, not now, whether you’d found out or not. He wouldn’t be the same person. He is - he was, before all this started - a very gentle man. But then, he knows I wouldn’t marry him, not after Decimus. It’s over, for both of us.’
‘You’ve talked to him? Since your husband’s death?’
‘No. Not directly.’ She glanced towards the door; yeah, right: Stentor. ‘I’m glad you came, though. To a certain degree, it takes things out of my hands.’
I stood up. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said.
She smiled. ‘You mean I have a choice?’
‘I think,’ I said gently, ‘you’ve already made it.’
This time, she didn’t answer. She was staring straight ahead at nothing, lips set tight in a firm line, like a statue, but for the tears on her cheeks.
Patient Penelope. Only what happens when the husband who comes back isn’t the same one that set out?
I paused, hand on the doorknob. Maybe this wasn’t exactly the time, but there was still a loose end to tie up and if I didn’t ask I knew that I’d regret it later.
‘Ah...just one more question,’ I said.
‘Yes?’ The head didn’t turn.
‘The evening Chlorus was killed someone tried to knock me down with a slingstone. It could’ve been Ligurius himself, sure, but he’d’ve been pushed to get back to the town centre for his rendevous with your brother. Compared to everything else it’s not really important, but I was wondering –’
She half-smiled. ‘I’m terribly afraid, Corvinus,’ she said, ‘that that was me.’
I goggled. ‘It was what?’
‘Quintus couldn’t use a sling to save himself. I can, very well. And a bow, incidentally, although on that occasion I chose a sling because it was far easier to conceal.’ The smile broadened. ‘Don’t look surprised. I was quite a tomboy when I was a child, and I always have been very good at anything involving aiming and throwing.’
‘But why the hell attack me at all?’
‘To kill you, obviously. Or at least hurt you very badly. It was the simplest way to stop you asking questions. If it’s any consolation, however, I’m glad now that I missed. And I realised almost immediately that it had been a mistake.’
Her voice was totally matter-of-fact; we could’ve been talking about the price of fish. Sweet holy Jupiter! Callous was right.
I left her to her thoughts and set out for the fish farm.
I took my time over the journey. There wasn’t any hurry with that, either, and I didn’t want to overtake Stentor. Things were out of my hands, too, by now, and I suspected it was better that way because if they hadn’t been unlike Penelope I wouldn’t’ve had any choices to make.
The guy on the gate let me in. He was white-faced, and he didn’t say much. Slave grapevine: news travels fast.
They’d left him where they’d found him, in the little office. I’d thought - hoped - that when Penelope’s message came he might’ve done a runner. I’d’ve been happy with that; like I say, I didn’t have much sympathy for any of his victims, and to see a guy handed over to the public strangler through my doing doesn’t give me any pleasure at all. But he’d chosen to kill himself instead, which was his only other option under the circumstances. Probably, for Ligurius, it’d been the only option he’d considered. A knife under the chin is quick, and he’d lost it all, anyway.
I wasn’t going to go up to the villa; no way was I going there. Gellia could find out the results of the investigation through official channels. The same went for Nerva. I supposed I really should report to the town officer, tell him what I knew, get his congratulations and wrap the whole thing up...
Bugger it. The loose ends could wait. What I really felt like now was getting smashed out of my skull at Zethus’s and then going home.
28
I moped about a bit for the rest of the day. I hadn’t got completely canned in Zethus’s after all: when it came to the point there didn’t seem much point, as it were. I just had the half jug, told the gossip-mongering barfly-ghouls at the counter how things’d turned out - they’d hear the story quick enough through the grapevine anyway, and at least this way I could be sure of what the bastards were passing on - and called it a day at that. I didn’t ment
ion Ligurius’s connection with Penelope, though: I reckoned that lady had grief enough, and the information was private. As far as Zethus’s clientele were concerned he’d just been insulted one time too many, beaned the master with the fish pole and in the end killed himself to avoid an inevitable date with the public executioner. End of case, exit villain.
So, like I say, I went back home and moped around. Mother and Priscus had gone off to Neapolis again - there were still a few shops out in the sticks that she hadn’t been into - but Perilla had stayed behind to give me some moral support when I got back. I needed it. It was always like this at the end of a case: you felt empty, drained. It was even worse when the guy who’d done it turned out not to be one of the bastards you hoped had.
‘You think all this faffing around is worth it, lady?’ I said to Perilla. We were sitting out in the garden, under the shade of a trellised vine. She was reading, I was watching a squirrel poking around beneath the big beech tree fifty yards off. Wrong time of year, pal, I thought. No nuts in July.
‘What faffing around, Marcus?’
‘This detecting. Half the time it only leads to trouble. If I hadn’t interfered Ligurius would still be alive, so would Tattius, and the two of them would probably have got married when the old man popped his clogs.’
‘Ligurius and Tattius?’
‘Come on, Perilla, you know what I mean. My bet is that Penelope was just waiting for her husband to drop off his perch from natural causes. Then she’d’ve given her father the finger, if he was still alive himself, and married Ligurius in spite of him and her brothers. Duty done, happy ever after, and it wouldn’t’ve mattered if it’d taken another fifteen years because she’d’ve waited them out as well, and so would he. Me being here changed all that.’
Perilla rolled up her book and gave me a long, steady look. Finally she said in a hard voice: ‘Don’t be silly, Marcus. Ligurius was a killer. He had to be caught. And if he decided to take his own life rather than run then that was his own decision.’
‘Ligurius wasn’t a killer, lady. Not originally, not by nature. Murena’s death was an accident. What turned the guy into a murderer was knowing I was sniffing around the corpse and being afraid I’d find out what happened. That’s what I’m saying. If I hadn’t interfered then it would’ve ended with Murena, and Murena’s was no murder at all. Chlorus and Tattius would still be alive - even those bastards had some right to life - and Ligurius and Penelope would still have a future, or at least the hopes of one.’
‘Trebbio wouldn’t.’
That stopped me. She was right, of course: someone had to be up for the rap, and Trebbio had been it. Penelope had told me upfront that she wouldn’t’ve interfered. He could’ve got off at the trial, sure, but that wasn’t likely. Praetor’s reps are very neat about those things: a murder needs a murderer, and that’s the end of it. We were still talking balances here, though: one life saved against three lost. Not good arithmetic. I said so.
‘One innocent life, Marcus,’ Perilla said.
‘Against three guilty? One I’d grant you, just. The other two - well, Chlorus and Tattius might’ve been out-and-out bastards, but could you put your hand on your heart and say they deserved to die? Because I couldn’t. And they died because I interfered.’
She put the book down. ‘They died because Ligurius killed them,’ she said.
I sighed. Yeah, well; it wasn’t worth arguing, and she was right, anyway. It was just the mood I was in. I watched the squirrel for a bit, and after a while Perilla picked her book back up and carried on reading.
Ten minutes later she raised her head. ‘Why don’t we go to Philippus’s tonight?’ she said.
My eyes had glazed over. I snapped back to attention. ‘What?’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. He’s a lovely man really. And I noticed that some of the people there were playing Robbers. I enjoy Robbers.’
Jupiter in bloody spangles! ‘Perilla, that’s a men-only gambling hall! Just because he let you in once as a favour doesn’t mean –’
‘Nonsense. We can ask, at least. I’m sure there must be some good players there. I can give you a whole row of men and still beat you hands down every time. It’d be nice to have some decent competition for once.’
Oh, shit. What had I let loose? ‘Perilla –’
‘We could even persuade Vipsania to let us take Priscus along. He’d be all right with us there, and the poor man deserves a proper holiday like anyone else.’
I had to put a stop to this right now. ‘Perilla, listen,’ I said. ‘Pin your bloody ears back for once and use them. We are not going back to Philippus’s, okay? Believe me, gambling’s a habit that can get a real grip on you. Just don’t start, right?’
She grinned at me.
Bugger. I stood up, kissed her and went inside to see if I could scare up Bathyllus and another half jug of wine.
Ah, well; maybe life wasn’t too bad after all. And an evening at Philippus’s might be fun.
So long as the lady didn’t get a taste for it.
Author’s Note
I experienced another of those weird coincidences while writing this book.
The original idea was twofold. I wanted to set a story in Baiae, against a background of fish farming, where my victim would be found in a tank of moray eels. I also wanted names (and nicknames especially) to be central to the plot.
Okay; so I started with my victim. The Latin for a moray eel is murena, Murena is a Latin surname, so my victim - given the ‘names’ idea - would be Murena. Murena is a surname of the gens (broader family) Licinia, so the man’s name had, for the sake of authenticity, to be Licinius Murena. The first name didn’t matter, so I chose one at random: Lucius. So. Lucius Licinius Murena.
Then I started to do my research, and discovered that in the first century BC - about the time of Cicero - there had been a real Lucius Licinius Murena, who had pioneered fish farming...
Weird, right? It’s true, honestly, and that’s the way it happened.
Two very short background notes, for those who are interested.
Fish farming
The Romans loved fish, but they were definitely an expensive luxury; also, where sea fish were concerned at least, a seasonal delicacy not readily available in the winter months. The first person to realise that fish, or rather shellfish, could be farmed was Sergius Orata, who constructed oyster ponds on the Gulf of Baiae in the early 1st century BC. He was followed by others, including the real Lucius Licinius Murena and the epicure Lucullus. When Lucullus died the fish in his ponds were sold and brought in the huge sum of four million sesterces (two and a half thousand would buy a decent slave; the cost-equivalent, today, of a mid-price new car).
One of the ‘fish’ fish that the Romans kept in their ponds was the moray eel; not that it tasted particularly nice (I don’t know that from personal experience, mind) but because it was exotic. It was also a flesh-eater, which gave it an added cachet. The bit in the book about Murena feeding Philippus’s father to the eels I have not made up: the Romans believed that morays fed on human flesh tasted better, and they didn’t believe in waste.
Twelve Lines
‘Twelve Lines’ (Duodecim scripta) was, according to my invaluable old Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, the ancestor of our backgammon, with certain important differences. There were fifteen counters, and the board was marked off horizontally (either side of the vertical centre-line which - if it was physically present - provided the dividing spine with the turning-point at the end, like the spina in a racetrack) with twelve lines. Play, as in backgammon, was ‘out and back’, with the two opponents moving in opposite directions and taking the pieces off at the end. Single pieces were vulnerable, and covered pieces were safe.
So much for the similarities. There were three main differences. First of all, instead of the staggered modern arrangement, each player began the game with all his pieces arranged in three rows of five on his first three lines. Secondly, the Romans use
d three six-sided dice, not two. Thirdly, the rule was ‘one die, one piece’, which meant that you couldn’t, say, combine the scores of three and two on two dice to move one piece forward five lines.
I admit I may have cheated a little at the end of ‘my’ game by allowing Perilla (and Florus) to use the three dice for their remaining single men rather than just one; I’m not absolutely sure (Smith doesn’t say), but I think that the second would be more likely. I chose three simply for reasons of pace.
My thanks (again) to my wife Rona, for her usual patience; to Ronald Knox and Costas Panayotakis of Glasgow University’s Department of Classics; and to Adam Hutchison, researcher extraordinary, for finding me bits about Baiae.
Food for the Fishes (Marcus Corvinus Book 10) Page 26