The Tribune's curse s-7

by John Maddox Roberts

  I leaned out for a better look, bracing a hand against one of the masts set in massive, bronze sconces at intervals along the top of the outer wall. On days of theatricals, these masts supported the velarium, a huge awning. Pompey’s velarium was striped with purple, because he was never shy about reminding people of his military glory. Of course, the stripes were not made with the true, Tyrian purple used for the triumphator’s robe. That much Tyrian dye would have cost more than the whole theater complex. Rather, it was made with dye extracted from the common trumpet-shell and mixed with various native dyes. I learned this from an old dye merchant of Ostia. The effect was almost the same as that of the true purple, but unlike Tyrian dye this imitation faded with age and exposure to the sun.

  Beyond the theater stretched the sprawling buildings of the Campus Martius. They were not stacked as high as those crowded within the walls and so gave a finer sense of space. Largest of them was the Circus Flaminius. It was smaller than the Circus Maximus, but constructed largely of stone, while the Maximus was mostly of wood. Between the clusters of buildings were broad stretches of greenery. This part of Rome was actually far more pleasant to live in than Rome within the pomerium, but a native just didn’t feel that he was in Rome unless he was within the walls.

  “An imposing view, is it not?”

  I turned to see Asklepiodes behind me. He was a small man, wearing a traditional physician’s robe, his gray hair and beard dressed in the Greek fashion, with a fillet of plaited silver encircling his brow. He was physician to the gladiatorial school of Statilius Taurus and an old friend. He was also, by his own modest claim, the world’s leading authority on wounds inflicted by weapons. In this professional capacity he had aided me in many investigations. In his other capacity he had bandaged, stitched, and anointed me more times than I could readily count. I took his hand, which was astonishingly strong for a man his size.

  “It is good to see you again,” I said, studying him. “You’re a little grayer, but otherwise unchanged.”

  “You are likewise the same except for a few new scars. Young Hermes tells me the two of you have been conquering Gaul virtually without help.”

  “He’s young and inclined to boast. Right now it seems as if someone is trying to start a good-sized war right here in Rome.”

  “Truly? How might that be?”

  “You haven’t heard of what’s been happening? The departure of Crassus and the curse and last night’s murder?”

  “I heard some rumors at the school, but I am very busy and pay little attention to the political life of Rome. I am a foreigner and cannot vote, so what would be the point?” We strolled toward the catafalque, and he looked over the temple with a critical eye. “This is a very strange place to build a temple, is it not?”

  “You don’t know that story, either?”

  “There is much about Rome that I do not understand, long though I have lived here.”

  “Well, for centuries the Censors have fought any attempt to build a theater in Rome. They say that plays are a passing frivolity, and besides, they’re foreign and degenerate and, if you will forgive me, Greek. So Pompey, when he wanted to polish up his reputation by giving us a permanent theater, put this temple at the top of the seats so he could say that the seats are actually a stairway leading to the temple.”

  He smiled. “That is a tortuous subterfuge, considering the reputation you Romans have as a straightforward people.”

  “We have our moments.”

  “And your concept of corrupting influence mystifies me. I spend my days patching up the men who fight in your funeral Games, who die by the score in those spectacles and whose practice bouts are as bloody as some conventional battles. You enjoy chariot races that are scarcely less dangerous than wars and are conducive to mob violence. Yet you fear contamination from Sophocles and Aeschylus?”

  “But the munera are religious services in placation of our dead,” I told him.

  “Drama and comedy are likewise celebrations to honor the gods.”

  “But,” I pointed out, “they encourage the softer emotions, like fear and pity, whereas our Games encourage the virtues of sternness and manliness. Believe me, with the way we’ve treated the rest of the world, if we show a moment’s softness, we’ll have Persians and Syrians and Libyans and Iberians at our throats in seconds, and that’s not mentioning the Gauls and Germans, who are halfway to our jugulars already.”

  “If you insist,” he muttered, grumpily. “But how you can reconcile your abhorrence of human sacrifice with dosing the shades of the dead with human blood challenges my powers of rationalization.”

  “But the gladiator has a better-than-even chance of coming out of the fight alive,” I told him. “You see? It’s different.” Sometimes I just don’t understand Greeks.

  “I shall defer to your command of the subject. Now, let’s have a look at this unfortunate politician.” He clapped his hands, and two men came running up the steps. They were his slaves-Egyptians who spoke only the native tongue of that land and who were expert surgeons in their own right. They had a skill of bandaging possible only to the people who invented mummies. At Asklepiodes’ wordless gesture they peeled the ragged cloak and clothing from the corpse, leaving it all but naked. Unlike Romans, they had no superstitious dread of touching corpses. The thugs looked on curiously.

  “You may have consulted the wrong man, Decius,” said Asklepiodes. “I treat the gladiators, not the bestiarii. ” He referred to the men whose specialty it was to fight wild animals in the Games. It was a much lower calling than that of swordsman.

  “Do you think it was an animal? Caesti and spiked clubs can leave wounds similar to these.”

  “Who is the expert here?” he said, testily. “Actually, I think it might be several animals. There are claw marks and teeth marks, and there is a wound here,” he indicated a huge slash that slanted across the unfortunate man’s ribs, “that looks like it was made by a great whip.” He bent closer and had his slaves turn the body over on its belly. “There are other marks here, cuts and-” he mumbled some foreign words, and one of the slaves probed delicately at a bloody depression on the back of the skull “-a depressed fracture that might have been made by a club. It is as if he was attacked with weapons from behind and by beasts from in front.”

  “Like a condemned man pushed to the lions by men with spears?”

  “Possibly, although these attacks from behind were more than mere proddings. How did this man come to rate so colorful and thorough a demise?”

  I gave him an abbreviated version of the story, leaving out, of course, the part about the Secret Name of Rome.

  “Ahh,” he said, clapping his palms together with delight at so utterly bizarre a story. “This is far better than the usual sordid murder for gain or for revenge. It is like something from one of the dramas,” he waved a hand toward the stage, where the actors still pranced through their paces. “In fact, thinking of them,” his face grew more solemn, “if I were a more religious man, or one more superstitiously inclined-” he let it taper off portentously.

  “Then what?” I urged.

  “The man committed a great offense against the gods. In the ancient tales immortalized in the great plays, the gods reserve an especially terrible punishment for those who offend them greatly.”

  Against all reason, fear gripped my bowels. “You can’t mean the Fur-”

  He held up an admonitory finger to silence me. “I mean, sometimes they release the Friendly Ones from the underworld to torment the sinner to his death.” He used the famous euphemism because to speak the name of those horrid creatures was to attract their attention. “These spirits of divine vengeance are said to be provided with natural weapons sufficient to wreak the sort of damage we see here.” He waved a hand airily. “That is, I might speculate thus were I of a superstitious turn of mind.”

  His little qualification was too late for some of us. At his first suggestion the thugs were backing away from the otherwise inoffensive corpse,
their eyes bugging out with dread. Two of them whirled and ran toward the exits so ingeniously designed to fill and empty the theater with greatest dispatch. Wonderful, I thought. Before nightfall, the City would be swept by yet another rumor: the Friendly Ones were loose in Rome!

  “And I had always thought you the most rational of men,” I said.

  “And so I am. I simply did not wish to leave any possibility unexplored.”

  “I see. Well, leaving aside for the moment the nature of the creature that attacked him and adhering as closely as possible to mundane precepts, can you tell me anything at all about how he died?”

  “To begin, he was probably not killed where he was found.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has been dead for at least two days, possibly as long as three. The cool weather has helped. In summer he would be very offensive by now.”

  “He isn’t good company as it is, but I take your point.”

  “He is largely drained of blood, as is only to be expected with such extensive wounds. These marks around his wrists,” he indicated livid lines encircling both joints, “indicate that he was bound at one point and struggling against his bonds.”

  “That means there were at least two assailants,” I mused.

  “Unless he cooperated in his binding, I would think that to be the case. It is not unheard of, but I would think it doubtful in this case. That, however, is your realm of expertise. And that,” he said, straightening, “is as much as I can tell you at this time. I shall consult with my colleague who tends to the wounds of the bestiarii, and, if I learn anything of value, I shall get word to you.”

  “I am grateful for all your help.”

  He waved my thanks aside. “The entertainment alone is worth the effort. This is much more interesting than stitching up conventional lacerations. In the course of your campaigning in Gaul, did you happen to encounter any unfamiliar weapons, anything capable of inflicting unusual wounds?”

  So we talked shop for a while, and I told him about a really hideous new weapon we had found some of the Eastern Gallic tribes employing, called a falx. It had a handle long enough for two hands and sported a blade two feet or more in length, which was curved like a scythe and sharp on the inside curve. It could lop off a man’s leg with a single swipe. Asklepiodes showed great interest in this and expressed his regret that he had no opportunity to examine so impressive a wound. I promised him I would send him back a falx for his extensive collection of weapons.

  At length we parted, promising to get together for dinner sometime soon. He called to his Egyptians, who seemed to be performing a prayer over the body of Ateius, as if they, too, saw in his sad condition some fearful manifestation of the vengeance of the netherworld gods.

  By this time it was nearly noon. Without reluctance I took my leave of the late Ateius, who was now attended by only three or four intrepid supporters of Clodius, men apparently unafraid of maleficent underworld creatures.

  As I walked back toward the City, head down and hands clasped behind my back, I must have looked like one of those Peripatetic philosophers who did their cogitating while walking. Or maybe it was their talking that they did while walking. Some-thing like that, anyway. Great as was my abhorrence for philosophy and its practitioners, most of whom, in my opinion, might be better employed doing something useful, like herding geese, I found myself trying to break down my problem by categories and subcategories, as philosophers are so fond of doing while feeling very clever about it all, too.

  I had two investigations to conduct: the first was into the source from which Ateius Capito learned the Secret Name of Rome. The second was to find the murderer or murderers of the same Ateius Capito. Thinking philosophically, either the two cases were connected, or they were not. This, I think, is called a syllogism. I am not certain, and I am not about to ask a philosopher.

  If they were connected, might Ateius not have been murdered to conceal the identity of his informant? If so, find the murderer and I would find the betrayer of the Secret Name, and it would be all very tidy. Unfortunately, this case bore no discernible aspects of tidiness. On the contrary, it spread out in too many directions. It involved foreign war, domestic politics, the ambitions of men great and petty, and it involved the gods and spirits of the underworld.

  But what if most of these elements were peripheral, and the true motivation behind all of it, the prime mover, if you will, was a single thing that they all had in common? This is what I call the nexus, and in discovering this nexus I have solved a number of investigations, although few as odd as this one. The nexus may be right out there in plain view. The trick is to ignore all the irrelevancies. That can be very difficult to do when the irrelevancies are as colorful and diverting as they were in this case. I had certainly never had to take the Friendly Ones into consideration before.

  One thing I have learned that has never, to my knowledge, been articulated by any philosopher. It is that nobody thinks better for being hungry. Desiring to improve my mental powers, I went in search of something to eat.

  It is a virtue of Rome that you never have to go far to find a wineshop. They are to be found on every corner, and almost all of them supply a few tables and benches where one may repose, ponder, and watch the passing show. I found just such an establishment a few streets off the Forum, took a table, and, with a forbearance not entirely characteristic of me, waited until the food arrived before I began making inroads upon the wine.

  With the mental clarity induced by a full stomach, I sought inspiration (Bacchus being a very inspiring god). I tried to lay out the facts as I had received them. Where had all this begun?

  First, Ateius had cursed Crassus. More specifically, he had cursed Crassus’s expedition, and all who took part in it. Not very helpful. Crassus was not a popular man, just a man to whom many people owed debts. His proposed war was not a popular one. But would these things inspire such hideous crimes? Would not assassinating Crassus be easier, quicker, and more to the point? And who profited from this catastrophe? First off, the king of Parthia, one Orodes by name, who had to my knowledge no adherents in Rome. Opposition in Rome had nothing to do with affection for the Parthians, who were just another pack of horse-eating barbarians. Once again, if Orodes wished to take preemptive action, why not hire a man with a dagger instead of a tribune with a curse? It would be cheaper and probably more effective.

  And since Crassus was so roundly detested, why kill Ateius? Most of the men who opposed Crassus must have felt only delight at his discomfiture when his expedition was cursed. In the entire City, the only man I could think of who would kill Ateius for his actions was the younger Marcus Crassus, who keenly felt the insult to his family and had much to lose if his father’s war failed. He had expressed to me a quite reasonable and laudable desire to horsewhip Ateius as soon as he stepped down from office. Had he been concealing far-more-dire intentions? I rather doubted it. He had too much of his father’s unemotional, dispassionate nature. Still, I did not discount him as a possibility.

  Then there was the curse, more specifically the Secret Name of Rome. Was Ateius murdered to protect the identity of the person who had divulged that name? This looked more promising. Also, it suggested a conspiracy. One thing I knew from long experience: it is easier to hide an elephant under the bed than it is to hide a conspiracy in Rome, especially one that involves not only important men, but foreigners like the sorcerers I had interviewed. Sometimes, it seems as if conspirators are actually eager to talk, if you can just give them an excuse.

  I was beginning to get impatient with Bacchus when he tapped me with one of those inspirations: I had been concentrating on the cursed man and the murdered man, but suppose these were just minor casualties of an attack aimed at Rome itself? This seemed promising and got my patriotic, republican feathers ruffled. After all, the indignation over the curse was not because of its assault on Crassus, whom nobody liked, but because it endangered Rome. Orodes again? But the business of the curse seemed incredibly subtle for
some long-sleeved, trousers-wearing barbarian tyrant. Unless, of course, he had the aid of a Roman traitor.

  I realized that I was trying too hard to pin the blame on a foreign enemy. I did not want to believe that, once again, Romans were engaged in fratricidal, internal warfare. A will to believe or disbelieve something is the enemy of all rational thought.

  Somehow, I knew that I was overlooking something. I was sure that there was a motivating factor that I was missing, as well as a unifying center, a sort of double nexus at which all the tangled strands of this maddening business crossed. I slammed my cup on the table in frustration.

  “Is something wrong, Senator?” asked a plump young serving woman.

  “I am receiving insufficient inspiration,” I told her.

  “I thought maybe it was because your jug’s empty.”

  I looked into the lees swirling in the bottom of the jug. “So it is. Well, that’s easily rectified. Bring me another.”

  She took the empty and returned with a full jug. “I can’t promise inspiration, but the wine’s good.”

  It may be that I was walking a trifle unsteadily when I made my way back through the Forum. Even for the greatest gossiping spot in the world, it was in something of an uproar. Self-appointed public orators were haranguing knots of idlers from the bases of monuments; people were babbling away as if they were actually well informed about the affairs of the world; senators stood around on the court platforms and the steps of the great public buildings, arguing vehemently about one thing or another.

  “Decius Caecilius!” It was Cato, standing in the portico of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. He was with Sallustius Crispus, the hairy oaf I’d met at the baths a few days before. Just what I needed. The man who had been one of my least favorite Romans for many years was friendly with my latest object of dislike. Oh, well. After shaking Clodius’s hand in public the night before, I could smile my way through this.