SPQR VI: Nobody Loves a Centurion

by John Maddox Roberts

  “All right, you can put your clothes back on.”

  She whirled and let her hair drop. “What?” It was the first genuine feeling I had been able to elicit from her.

  “I’ve seen what I wanted to see. Put your tunic back on. Or leave it off, if you’d rather sleep that way.”

  She stooped and picked up her furry tunic. “You are easily satisfied.”

  “Titus Vinius did not beat you, Freda,” I said. “Why was that?”

  “I pleased him,” she said, fastening the fibula at her shoulder.

  “Don’t be absurd,” I said. “That vicious bastard beat anything that came within reach of his vinestock. You don’t have a mark on your skin. Tell me why this is so.”

  She sank down onto the pallet recently occupied by the now-banished Hermes. “Men sometimes find their pleasures in strange practices. Especially men who have great power over lesser men. Sometimes, such men like to be beaten themselves.” She smiled at me sweetly. “They like to be humiliated and degraded by women. By slave women best of all.”

  By Hercules, I thought, these Germans are far more sophisticated than I had imagined!

  “And you performed these, ah, services for Titus Vinius?”

  “Whenever he wished. And he never laid a hand or a stick on me, although he sometimes spoke roughly to me in front of others. He said that he had to do this for the sake of appearances. He always begged my forgiveness afterward and wanted to be punished for it.”

  Well, well, Titus Vinius, I thought. What an odd person you’ve turned out to be. I’d known politicians who didn’t have as many strange quirks.

  “You always obliged him?” I asked.

  “Of course. I am a slave, after all.”

  “So you are. Go to sleep, Freda, I have a lot to think about.”

  She studied me incredulously for a few moments, then she lay down, pillowing her head on her bent arm. She closed her eyes, but whether she slept or not I could not tell. I snuffed out the lamps and lay back.

  It had not been easy. I had longed to take her in both hands and bury my face in that fabulous hair, but I knew I would be lost if I did that. She might be a barbarian slave, but she knew her own power and I would be acknowledging that power by following my natural inclinations.

  Whatever else I was, I was not going to be another Titus Vinius.

  8

  MY FIRST STOP THE NEXT MORNING was the smithy. The smith, like many of the legion’s artisans, was a soldier who earned himself extra pay and exemption from fatigue by practicing a necessary craft. Luckily, repairing the lock on Vinius’s chest and crafting a key for it was not beyond his level of skill. I stood close while he did the work and paid him a couple of sesterces for the effort. It was not strictly necessary to pay him, but it is always a mistake to take such persons for granted. I might need to have my horse shod some day and it would be done more expeditiously if the man remembered me fondly.

  I left the chest inside the great tent of the praetorium, where it would be about as safe as it could be under the circumstances. Then I went to speak with the men most immediately concerned with the success of my mission. I found them under heavy guard in a pit excavated next to the tent in which the standards were kept. It was twenty feet on a side and twelve feet deep. A contubernium stood around its periphery facing inward, each man with a sheaf of javelins to go with his pilum. One of the guards had a white band painted around the lower rim of his helmet, signifying that he was the decurion.

  “I am the investigating officer,” I said, addressing the man with the white band. “I need to speak with the prisoners.”

  “We were told you are to have access,” the decurion said. He turned to the man next to him. “Silva, run the ladder down for the captain.”

  “While I confer with them, I’d appreciate it if you and your men would step back from the edge here. I need to speak in private.”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance, sir. If one of them contrives to commit suicide, one of us takes his place. If they harm you, we all go in there. Just keep your voice down and we promise not to eavesdrop.”

  I went down the ladder and Burrus jumped up to greet me. The rest sat disconsolately on the muddy ground, their anklerings fastened to a single chain like a slave work gang. Men in their predicament could be forgiven for a lack of enthusiasm.

  “Patron!” Burrus said. “What is happening? The guards are forbidden to speak to us.”

  “First off, I’ve been assigned to investigate the murder of Vinius.”

  He turned to the others. “You see? I told you my patron would get us out of this. He is famous for rooting out traitors and murderers. We are as good as free!”

  I was touched by his faith in me, although I feared it might be exaggerated. I looked at the rest of the contubernium and they seemed to share my skepticism. Quadratus gave me a sour smile and nod. The rest looked me over warily. They were typical soldiers, most of them older than Burrus, a couple of them silver-stubbled veterans. It was the sort of balance considered ideal in the legions, with the veterans providing steadiness and the recruits the youthful boldness necessary to aggressive operations. A unit made up entirely of veterans is likely to be too cautious; one of recruits too reckless and easily panicked in adversity. It was a combination that had won us an empire.

  “I am the only man in Gaul who can save you,” I told them bluntly. “I do not believe that you killed Titus Vinius, but even I must acknowledge that you look as guilty as Oedipus.”

  “Who’s Oedipus?” one of them asked.

  “He was that Greek who put it to his mother,” said a veteran.

  “Well,” said another, “that’s Greeks for you. What do you expect?”

  We were getting off the subject and I made a mental vow to avoid metaphors. “Listen here. If I am to prove that you men did not kill Vinius, I need to know everything you know about him. You don’t need to tell me how vicious he was, I know all about that. But did he have, let us say, extralegionary dealings?”

  “What senior centurion doesn’t?” Quadratus said. “Naturally, he was dealing with the local merchants and suppliers. The First Spear and the Prefect of the Camp always live in each other’s purses. It’s always been that way with the legions.”

  “I’m looking for something more serious than the usual, petty institutionalized corruption. How was Vinius making himself rich?”

  A veteran scratched his chin. “I never knew that Vinius was any richer than other men of his rank. We paid him what we could to get out of shit fatigues and punishments, but that’s not going to make anyone rich. We used to figure most of his bribes went to buy him new vinestocks.” At this the others laughed, showing a commendable resiliency of spirit.

  “I’ve learned something about Vinius,” I said, lowering my voice, “and I want you to keep this among yourselves.”

  Quadratus gestured toward the surrounding guards. “You think we’re going to blab it all over camp?”

  “In the last year,” I continued, “Titus Vinius was investing heavily in estates in Italy. He spent or pledged in excess of a million denarii and I am curious as to just how he came by such a sum.”

  “It’s news to me,” Quadratus said. The others looked similarly dumbfounded. “Of course, he didn’t consult with us about his financial dealings.”

  “I’ll wager that he didn’t confide in anybody,” I said. “Not in this legion, at any rate. That’s why I want to know what he was doing outside the legion. Molon tells me that he was on at least one or two embassies to the Gauls and Germans.”

  “Watch out what that ugly bugger tells you,” said one of the older men. “A slave will never tell the truth when he can get away with a lie. But that much is true. Vinius went out just about every time the Proconsul here had to treat with the barbarians. He was in charge of the honor guard and the First Spear’s advice was always sought in military matters. It’s custom.”

  “Did Vinius ever consult with the Gauls or the Germans here?”


  At that they all laughed. “Barbarians in this camp? Not likely, except for those praetorian auxilia.”

  This was getting like those dreams I sometimes had, where I was always running through the strangely deserted streets of Rome, trying to get home or to the Forum, and somehow never making it there, instead running into a succession of blind alleys.

  “All right, then, tell me about what you were doing the night he was killed.”

  “Quadratus and I were on the same station on the north wall where you found us before,” Burrus said. “We always had the same guard posts on our duty nights, which, as you know, was every night recently.” He named the other six by pairs. He and Quadratus had manned the easternmost post, and the rest had the three successive posts to the west.

  “When did you last see him?” I asked.

  “At evening parade before guard mount,” Burrus told me. “He was on the reviewing stand with the legatus, like most evenings.”

  “Caesar wasn’t there?”

  “The Proconsul usually appears only at formal parades,” said a veteran. “Often as not, morning and evening parades are reviewed by a tribune.”

  “You didn’t see him on the wall that night?”

  “We rarely do,” Quadratus said. “Why work your way up to senior centurion if you’re just going to tramp around the wall all night like a common boot?”

  “Spoken like a true career soldier,” I told him. “He was found dressed in a coarse, dark-colored tunic, like a slave’s. Did any of you ever see him dressed like that?”

  They looked at one another with embarrassed expressions, an odd sight on such hard-bitten countenances.

  “Well, sir,” a veteran began, “we all knew that Vinius and that German woman got up to some pretty strange games, but they kept it behind the tent flap. He never let anyone see him looking like anything but a centurion.”

  “Dressed like that, in public,” Quadratus elaborated, “well, he’d’ve been a laughingstock, worse than when you showed up in that full-dress rig.” They all had a good chuckle at my expense. “He would’ve lost respect, and a centurion can’t afford that. A First Spear least of all.”

  “He was killed a few hundred yards from where you were standing guard,” I said. “Did you hear anything?”

  “Just the barbarians raising their usual racket,” Burrus said. “Just like that night you were guard officer. They could’ve slaughtered a dozen Romans out there and we probably wouldn’t have noticed. On top of that, we were all half dead from lack of sleep.”

  “That’s one thing being shut up here is good for,” Quadratus commented. “Mud and all, last night was the first decent sleep we’ve had in weeks.”

  I looked up. There was nothing above the tent except the cloud-scattered blue sky. “I’ll see if I can persuade Labienus to put an awning over this hole.”

  “It’s not too bad as it is,” said one of the veterans. “Not like it was Libya.”

  I left them with further assurances that I would extricate them from what looked like certain doom. The younger men seemed eager to believe me. The rest had long ago learned the folly of expecting anything except the worst.

  Walking back toward the praetorium I saw that a sizable crowd had gathered in the camp forum. I sauntered over to see what was going on, passing as I did the scorched patch of ground occupied the previous day by the funeral pyre of Titus Vinius. In the middle of the crowd I saw Labienus seated in a curule chair on a low platform with a half-dozen lictors before him, leaning on their fasces. Spotting Carbo among the onlookers, I went to see what was going on.

  “The legatus is holding court,” he informed me. “A bunch of Provincial dignitaries and lawyers came in this morning and they need judgments on some long-standing cases.”

  “In a military camp in a war zone?” I said.

  “Life goes on,” Carbo told me, “even in wartime.”

  It is one of the many anomalies of our governmental system that, when we sent a propraetor or proconsul to the territories, we expect one man to be both magistrate and military commander. That is why he takes a legatus; so that he can concentrate on the more crucial function, leaving the other to his assistant. But sometimes, as now, the same man had to fill both roles. I was surprised to see well-dressed Gauls among the dignitaries, including some Druids who looked like the same ones I had seen earlier.

  If nothing else, this seemed an opportunity to have the praetorium to myself. I took a shortcut over the wall by the speaking platform and found the big tent deserted. First I walked a complete circuit of the tent to make sure that there were no possible onlookers, then I went inside.

  I lifted the heavy chest onto the table and opened it with my shiny new key. I took out all the deeds and made a list of them, with full particulars including purchase price. Then, with all the papers and tablets heaped to one side, I picked up the box. It was still far too heavy, even taking the thick wood and iron strapping into account. I carried it to the door opening and set it down with sunlight flooding into the bottom. It was perfectly smooth and without any projections. I tried shifting the heavy rivets that held the strapping, but none of them moved.

  I turned it over and examined the bottom. The chest rested on four stubby legs about an inch high, with leather pads glued to their feet. These I twisted one by one. The third one gave slightly. I took the chest back to the table and grasped the leg. Lifting that corner slightly, I turned the leg again. There was a click before it had completed one quarter of a revolution. The bottom of the chest sprang up a bit. I managed to get my dagger point between the bottom and the side and levered it up. The wooden slab came up easily. I was looking at what seemed to be a second chest bottom, this one made of solid gold.

  After a while I remembered to breathe and took a closer look. There was a cross-hatching of lines on the otherwise regular slab of gold. I stuck my dagger point into an interstice and pried up a miniature gold brick the length and width of my forefinger. It lay astonishingly heavy in my hand and I saw in the rectangular hole left by it another layer of gold.

  I replaced the gold bar, closed the false bottom, and twisted the trick chest leg into alignment. Then I went to the tent’s provision chest and helped myself to a goblet of Caesar’s wine, proud that I didn’t spill a drop.

  Who knew about this treasure? Vinius seemed to have no family. Did he confide in that steward of his? If so, how intimately? Sneakily, unworthily, a compelling thought crept into my brain: There was wealth here sufficient to clear all my debts and finance my tenure of the notoriously expensive aedileship. I could repair the streets and renovate a temple or two and put on splendid Games and have plenty left over for fun. How difficult could it be to alter those deeds and transfer them all to my name? I could become a major landholder, completely independent for the first time in my life. The estates were widely scattered and no one would ever know about most of them. Wealth in land was rarely investigated. Wealth of any kind, for that matter.

  “Into the wine supply a bit early, aren’t you?”

  I jerked around. Labienus stood in the doorway. “I find it helps my ponderings,” I told him.

  “Pour me a cup,” he said. “I could use a little inspiration.” He walked in. “I had to take a break before I ordered some summary executions that someone might sue me for when I return to Rome. Gods, how I detest provincial businessmen and publicani.” He glanced at the stack of deeds beside the strongbox. “Did those belong to Vinius? A lot of paperwork for a centurion.”

  I handed him a cup. “He was a bit of a businessman himself.”

  “Do yourself a favor,” Labienus advised. “Forget about this murder. I know that boy is one of your clients, but your family must have thousands of them. He won’t be missed, and the sooner those eight are executed, the sooner this army will return to normal. Normal is what you want with a war starting.”

  “I can’t let it rest until I’m satisfied,” I told him. “And I’m far from satisfied.”

  “What is the great
mystery?” he demanded. “The man was a brute and he treated his men like animals. That particular contubernium caught the brunt of his stick and it drove them to an act of foolish desperation. Completely understandable, if unforgivable. Let them pay for it and be done with it.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  “What doesn’t?” he said impatiently.

  “The dagger, for one thing.”

  “The dagger? What about it? Good, traditional weapon for killing people. Done all the time. Explain yourself.”

  “We have here eight soldiers, at least three of whom would have taken part in the murder. Every one of them carries a gladius day and night. Why use a dagger when you can use a gladius? You know what a gladius stab is like. It looks like someone rammed a shovel through the body. People sometimes survive a dagger thrust, if no vital organs are pierced and the infection doesn’t kill them. A gladius thrust is certain death, which is why we adopted the murderous thing in the first place.”

  “You have a point,” he admitted. “But men in such extremity often don’t think straight. And it was a conspiracy. Each may have wanted to deliver just a part of the killing so that the guilt would be evenly spread.”

  “A valid objection,” I allowed, my lawyer’s training coming to the fore. “But I find it hard to believe that they would be so incautious in eliminating a man as dangerous as Titus Vinius.” This legalistic fencing was helping me to keep my mind off all that gold in the bottom of the box. Even so, my scalp was sweating. “And the business with the strangler’s noose. It just doesn’t sound soldierly. I think these men would have done the job neatly and quickly, had they been inclined to kill him. And there is the way he was dressed.”

  “That is an oddity.”

  “The accused men say that the last time they saw him he was with you on the reviewing stand at evening parade. Did you see him after that?”

  “Let’s see . . . he came back to the praetorium and conferred for a while with Caesar and some Gauls—”