Death in the Ashes

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  “Can you tell what sort of mood he’s in today?” I asked Tacitus quietly.

  “More arrogant than cruel, I think.”

  I nodded. Those two words described Macedo most of the time. His father was a former slave who had made a fortune after his manumission. Some say Macedo doesn’t remember his servile origins, but I think he’s too aware of them. Even though he holds one of the highest offices in Rome and will enter the Senate as an ex-praetor in a few months, he is entirely untrustworthy among his social equals and brutal in his treatment of his slaves. He considers his female slaves his harem and even boasts about the herd of bastard children he’s siring on them.

  “I shudder to think that I have to plead for leniency from this man,” I said.

  “And you get to do it in a shit-stained toga.” Tacitus couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry, I know this is serious, but.…”

  Macedo, a tall man with broad shoulders, had his back to us, talking to someone we couldn’t see until we were right up on them. Then Regulus looked around Macedo and said, “Why, there he is. Gaius Pliny, we were just talking about you.”

  If Regulus was talking about me, it could not mean anything good. Martial and several of Regulus’ other clients clustered behind him. Martial tried not to meet my eyes.

  “Good morning, Marcus Regulus. Forgive me for interrupting your conversation. I need to talk to Larcius Macedo.”

  Macedo had been looking at me over his shoulder. Now he turned around to face me. “That was quite a downpour you got caught in.”

  “My clients and I were attacked on our way here.”

  “By a mob wielding chamber pots?”

  “I wanted to be certain I was on time, so we came through the Subura.”

  Macedo’s face seemed fixed in a sneer. “You took that big a risk and you were still late.”

  “Yes, and I want to ask if the case can be rescheduled. My delay in getting here was unintentional, as you can see—”

  “And smell.” Behind Macedo, Regulus laughed.

  “I don’t think Pompeia Celerina should be penalized because of circumstances beyond her control, or mine.”

  “You’re wasting your breath, Gaius Pliny.”

  “But—”

  “Marcus Regulus here has already graciously asked that the hearing be rescheduled.”

  “Regulus asked? What does he have to do with it?”

  “He’s defending the fellow you’re prosecuting. We’re going to put it off until the middle of this month. The Ides will be given over to the rites of the October Horse. Let’s hear the case the day after that. Is that agreeable to you?”

  My mouth moved a couple of times before words came out. “Why, yes. Of course.”

  “Regulus explained to me that you are prosecuting on behalf of your future mother-in-law. He did not want you to start your marriage on such an inauspicious note. You are in his debt,” Macedo said as he waved to someone and began to walk away. “I hope you realize that. Deeply in his debt.”

  I stood before Regulus in utter humiliation. “You’re defending in this case? Why?”

  “Because you’re prosecuting.”

  “But your client had already won the case. Why did you ask for the postponement?”

  He leaned close to me, in spite of the smell. He kept a smile on his face, but his voice dropped to a low snarl that only Tacitus and I could hear. “But I had not beaten you, you insolent pup. You beat me when you pled your first case. No one has let me forget it. This is my chance to even that score. I’m not going to let people say the only way I can win against you is by default.”

  Regulus had hated my uncle, and that enmity had become part of my inheritance. If he was doing this just to settle a score or avenge his honor, I didn’t see how I could be in his debt. I drew my shoulders back with a bit more confidence. “So you managed to persuade your client to forgo victory in the case, however obtained, in order to satisfy your hatred of me? What if you lose? The evidence against your client is substantial. We’re demanding a stiff fine on top of the restitution.”

  Regulus waved his hand. I wasn’t sure if he was dismissing me or trying to get rid of the smell emanating from my clothes. “Evidence be damned. I’m not going to lose.” He gathered up his toga and turned away.

  †

  Tacitus dismissed his clients and I sent my two remaining ones home as well. That left us with a retinue of three of Tacitus’ slaves and Phineas. I apologized again to Pompeia Celerina and assured her that I was confident we would win the case when it came to trial. I must have looked to her like Odysseus in his beggar’s rags claiming that he could string the bow. Through the scented cloth she held over her nose and mouth she accepted my apologies but did not offer to embrace me. Her litter-bearers and her clients started her on her way home.

  “Now I must get home as soon as possible and get cleaned up,” I said. “This is disgusting.”

  “You act like you’re the first person it’s ever happened to,” Tacitus said. “I know it’s not even the first time it’s happened to you.”

  “You don’t get used to this, no matter how many times it happens.” I touched the Tyche ring in my sinus. The events of the morning seemed to make a mockery of the whole idea of the thing bringing me any good fortune. And yet, the case had been postponed. I had made a bad decision when I led my clients into the Subura, but we had escaped, almost unscathed, and I hadn’t lost Pompeia’s case. Was it my good fortune today that Regulus hated me enough to let go of an assured victory just to have a chance to humiliate me?

  Opting not to return through the Subura, we were cutting through the crowd with ease and passing the Ludus Magnus when Phineas said, “My lord, I believe that’s Demetrius approaching us.”

  I looked where he was pointing and saw my steward, accompanied by a man I didn’t know. Phineas waved to attract Demetrius’ attention and we gathered off to one side of the street.

  “My lord, what happened?” Demetrius asked.

  Tacitus made a motion of someone turning a pot over to empty it.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I snapped. “What do you want?”

  Demetrius brought the stranger forward. “This man, my lord, is Thamyras, a messenger from the lady Manilia Aurelia. He arrived just a short while ago.”

  “Arrived? From Naples?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Thamyras said.

  “Are they well?” I had met Aurelia in Smyrna. At the time she was a slave, but I helped her learn her true identity and take her place with her family. I had not seen her since her wedding a year ago. Her husband‘s sister was a friend of my mother. Though they had property in Rome, Aurelia and her husband preferred to stay at their house south of Naples. They were overseeing the restoration of their estate after the destruction wrought by Mount Vesuvius. Even after five years, there was still much work to do.

  “No, my lord, they aren’t. They sent me to ask your help.”

  “Help? With what?”

  “The noble Calpurnius has been accused of murder, my lord.”

  III

  Calpurnius? Accused of murder? That’s preposterous.” I didn’t know Aurelia’s husband well, but I knew he was rich enough not to have to kill anyone for money and—even though he was almost twenty years her senior—too smitten with Aurelia to be involved in any sort of affair.

  “My lady asked me to give you this, my lord.” Thamyras held out a tablet sealed with a signet featuring a ram’s horn, which Aurelia had inherited from her father. As we walked along I broke the seal and read quietly so that no one but Tacitus could hear me.

  Manilia Aurelia to her friend Gaius Pliny, greetings.

  I hope you are well. I am in dire need of your assistance. My dear husband has been accused of killing one of our freedwomen. He will not defend himself. He won’t even tell me what happened. The servant who brings you this note will tell you the details. I cannot bear to write them. You have done so much for me in the past that I hate to ask for your help again, but I don’t kn
ow where else to turn. Everyone is convinced he’s guilty, but I swear to you that my husband could not have done such a horrible thing.

  Given two days before the Kalends of October.

  I looked up at Thamyras, really seeing him for the first time. He was a man of about forty, thin and with a tanned, weathered complexion that suggested he worked mostly outside. Although he had an ­honest face, with eyes that did not turn away from mine, the fact that he hadn’t been shaved in a couple of days made him look disreputable. He wrinkled his nose as the stench from my drenching wafted over him.

  “She says you will provide the details.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  I saw Phineas take out his stylus and a wax tablet. Making notes while we were walking would be tricky, but I was glad he’d thought of it without my having to call attention to it. I could wait until we got home to begin questioning the man, but I sensed urgency. My uncle used to criticize me because I liked to walk rather than be carried in a litter. He would have a scribe in the litter with him, reading or taking notes, to make use of time spent in travel. With Phineas’ writing box, I could emulate my uncle and still walk.

  “Well then, what details do you know?” I asked Thamyras.

  “I’m the one who found Calpurnius standing over the woman’s body, my lord.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two days ago, my lord. Early in the morning.”

  So, Aurelia had written the note and dispatched Thamyras immediately after the body was found. He had made good time getting here. “Did you see him kill her?”

  “No, my lord. No one did.”

  That much was encouraging. “Where did you find him?”

  “In the orchard beside our house, my lord.”

  “And he was just standing over the woman?”

  “Yes, my lord. Standing over her, looking down at her.”

  We turned and started up the Esquiline Hill. It was hard to hear over the noise of the crowd around us, but I didn’t want Thamyras to have to stand too close to me.

  “How would you describe the expression on his face?” Tacitus asked.

  “He looked very…puzzled, my lord.”

  “What did he say when he saw you?”

  “He told me to get some help, my lord.”

  Something a man might say if he was concerned about what he thought was an injured person…or something a killer might say to get rid of a witness. “Did you see any injuries on the woman?” I asked.

  “I saw blood on her chest, my lord.” He touched a spot that would have been just above a woman’s left breast.

  “Was the woman clothed?” Tacitus asked.

  “Yes, my lord, but her gown was bunched up. You could see quite a bit of her legs.” He touched his own leg high on the thigh.

  That might suggest she had been coupling with a man, whether willingly or not. “You say there was blood on her chest?” I asked. “Did you see blood anywhere else?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Who examined her?”

  “The freedman who cares for our sicknesses, my lord.”

  “And what was his conclusion?”

  “She’d been stabbed, my lord.”

  “How many times?”

  “Only once, my lord.”

  That made me pause. To kill a person with only one thrust of a blade, someone had to know what he was doing. Someone attacking in anger or fear would likely inflict multiple wounds. “Did anyone see a knife?”

  “Yes, my lord. Calpurnius was holding it.”

  “A knife with blood on it?” Tacitus asked.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  That made me stop for a moment in the shadow of the temple of Isis. Even the greenest prosecutor could convict a man found standing over a dead woman with what was probably the murder weapon in his hand. When we resumed walking, I asked, “Where is the woman’s body now?”

  “When I left, my lord, the lady Aurelia was trying to think of a place to put her until you could get there. She said you could tell what happened to her if you could examine the body.”

  I looked at Tacitus and could see he knew what I was thinking. The woman had already been dead for two days and it would be at least a couple of more days before I could get down there. I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to learn from a body that had been decaying for that long. And she would be moved, so anything I might have gathered from the spot where she was found was already lost. I muttered an oath.

  “The lady Aurelia says the woman was a freedwoman. Would Calpurnius have had any reason to kill her?” A reason such as a love affair that had turned sour.

  “No, my lord!” Thamyras seemed appalled that I would even ask such a thing. “She worked in the kitchen. She’d been in my lady Aurelia’s household for years.”

  “All right. Can you tell me anything else? Any little detail you might have forgotten?” I knew I would interrogate him again to see if his story was consistent, but I asked the question anyway.

  “No, my lord. I’ve told you all I know.”

  “Where is Calpurnius now?”

  “He’s being held at the vigiles’ headquarters in Naples, my lord. He won’t say anything, won’t even deny killing her. The lady Aurelia is nearly hysterical. We’re afraid it may have some effect on her unborn child.”

  “She’s carrying a child?” That was news to me.

  “Yes, my lord. Her nurse says she could give birth at any time now.”

  †

  When we arrived at my house, I sent Thamyras to the kitchen to get something to eat and gave orders for water to be heated and brought to the bath. “Make it practically boiling,” I told the servant. I didn’t think the water already in the bath would be hot enough to make me feel clean again.

  Tacitus sat on a bench beside the soaking pool as I dropped my stinking clothes and kicked them as far away from me as possible. I wrapped a towel around me as a loincloth.

  “You didn’t really get much on yourself,” Tacitus said, “except in your hair. Most of it ended up on your clothes.”

  As much as I hated to think of it, those clothes—with the stripe sewn by Aurora and worn only once—would have to be burned or cut up into cleaning rags. No matter how much they were washed, I couldn’t imagine myself wearing them again. Before I got into the pool I used a sponge to scrub myself with water from a basin brought by one of my servants.

  “How can I possibly help Aurelia?” I asked Tacitus as I worked on my arms, forcing myself to endure the scalding. “I don’t know if there’s a body to examine, and the place where she was found has most likely been trampled over and cleaned up by now.”

  “You can’t even be sure that’s the spot where she was killed.”

  I looked at Tacitus with a raised eyebrow.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “I’ve learned something from you by now. Things are not always what they at first appear. And I’ve learned something about you. I know you will go down there and give Aurelia whatever help you can, no matter how hopeless the situation seems right now.”

  “ ‘Hopeless’ is the right word. If Calpurnius was found standing over a murdered woman with a bloody knife in his hand, you don’t have to be Regulus to make him appear guilty.”

  “It’s possible that he is guilty, isn’t it?” Tacitus slipped off his sandals and sat on the edge of the bath, with his feet dangling in the water. “Maybe that’s why he won’t defend himself.”

  “Anything’s possible, of course. Ow! Ow!” I poured water over my head and shuddered at the color of it as it ran onto the floor. Without breaking off the conversation, I put the sponge to work. “But Aurelia’s grandfather chose Calpurnius as her husband, and you know how protective he is of her, since she’s his only living descendant. I’m sure he knows Calpurnius better than Calpurnius knows himself.”

  “You were surprised, though, at his choice. You told me so at the time.”

  “Yes, I know. I thought Manilius might have chosen someone from a more di
stinguished family. That branch of the Calpurnii haven’t held an office in my lifetime. They retired from public life when Nero was princeps. There was some sort of accusation against the elder Calpurnius, I believe, but nothing came of it.”

  “Your uncle retired from public life at that time.”

  “True, but he resumed his career when Vespasian took power and it was safe for decent men to be active again. Calpurnius and his family have continued to live apart from society.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?” Tacitus asked.

  “No, of course not. I’m sure Aurelia’s grandfather was satisfied with the younger Calpurnius’ character. My mother counts his sister among her friends. They are respectable people.”

  Tacitus shook his head slowly. “The passing of time can change a man, or bring out a nature he’s been hiding all along.”

  I was ready to discard my towel, but I’m never comfortable being nude in Tacitus’ presence because of his indifference to the gender of his sexual partners. He has never expressed that sort of interest in me, and yet the thought occurs to me in a situation like this.

  “Should I turn my back?” he said. “Or close my eyes?”

  Embarrassed that he could read my thoughts, I dropped my towel, stepped into the pool and soaked my head for a moment. When I surfaced I said, “I simply can’t make any assessment of Calpurnius’ character until I get down there and talk to him.”

  “Are you ready to go back there? I thought you still dreaded the area around Vesuvius.”

  “I do, and I wouldn’t go back if I had any choice.”

  Tacitus focused his gaze on his feet in the water. “If you don’t go down there, how do you keep up with your estate at Misenum?”

  “I get regular reports from my steward there. I keep a minimal staff, just for friends who may need a place to stay when they’re in the area.”

  “Who is your steward?”

  “I put Damon in that post.”

  “Damon? After all you learned about him in Smyrna?”

  I shook water out of my hair. “In spite of that, I’ve learned that he is absolutely trustworthy.”

  It had been four years since I’d been back to the Bay of Naples. After Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii and several other towns along the eastern end of the bay I had stayed at the villa at Misenum where we were living at the time. It had been damaged by the earthquakes that accompanied the eruption. My mother was so terrified of the place that she demanded we leave immediately. I could understand her fear. Her brother died in the eruption and she and I barely survived. I sent her up the coast to our house at Laurentum while I oversaw the repairs to the villa and tried to understand what it meant to be my uncle’s heir and adoptive son. I had not wanted to rush back to Rome until I understood my own position better. Once I’d left the bay, I did not want to return.