I was growing impatient and ready for some rest, but I could see Damon might prove a source of useful information. He had access to people who would talk to me only under duress. For all that Roman law stresses torture for extracting the truth from slaves, I doubt it actually has that effect. People will admit to anything when their arms are being wrenched from the sockets.
“I appreciate your inquiries,” I said, “but what have you learned other than the unsurprising fact that not everyone agrees with Marcus Carolus’ business methods?”
“There is one other thing, my lord. Euergetes said they’ve been on several caravans in recent years with Cornutus. They came to Antioch when he did and have spent the past year there. But Marcus Carolus never said anything to the man. Euergetes thought he appeared to be following Cornutus. ‘Like a hunter tracking his prey’—that’s the very phrase he used, my lord.”
“He wouldn’t be the only hunter in Rome after Cornutus. Cornutus had a lot of money and no children. You know what that means.”
Damon nodded. “Legacy hunters.”
“Yes. A constant stream of sycophants paying court, trying to ingratiate themselves into his will. I’m sure Regulus himself has been on the scent for some time.”
“But, my lord, Carolus never spoke to Cornutus, at least according to Euergetes. How could he be looking for a legacy?”
I pondered Damon’s question until I fell asleep. No immediate answer suggested itself, but a suspicion grew stronger that Chryseis was at the center of this maze. What I couldn’t find was the path leading from her to Cornutus to Marcellus. And Regulus, I was sure, was lurking somewhere, waiting to devour us all, like the Minotaur in his lair.
* * * *
Despite the heat I did sleep for a while. At around the ninth hour of the day I awoke, feeling refreshed enough for a little walk. On a roof.
I knocked on Tacitus’ door and heard some scurrying sounds from inside the room. I waited a moment until a handsome young boy opened the door, still adjusting his tunic, and slipped out past me with only a suggestion of a bow. Something about his face seemed familiar, though I knew I had never seen him before.
“Pamphile will be jealous,” I said to Tacitus, who was still lying in bed with a blanket pulled up to his waist, his head cradled on his left arm. Sweat beaded around the edges of his brown hair. He could have been a sculptor’s model for a resting satyr.
“No, she won’t. She sent him to me. He’s her brother.”
I hoped the shock and disgust I felt didn’t register on my face. “Oh, yes. That upturned nose. That’s where I’ve seen it before.” I wondered if Tacitus was going to plow his way through the whole family while we were stalled here.
“I’m sure you didn’t drop in to congratulate me on another conquest,” he said. “Are you looking for company for the baths?”
“Soon. But first I want to examine the room where Cornutus’ female slaves were confined the night he was killed.”
He threw on a tunic and we climbed the dark stairs to the third floor. Melissa and Phoebe had already left the room. I had told Trophimus, my overseer, to keep them as busy as possible. There were clothes to mend and wash. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure what tasks he was assigning them, or what tasks they had any experience with.
The room was a copy of my own and Tacitus’, but it hadn’t been whitewashed as recently as ours. The rooms on this floor were for poorer guests and the slaves of wealthier travelers. The beds were rickety, the mattresses a bit aromatic. I went straight to the window and poked my head out.
“I thought you were going to search the place,” Tacitus said.
“What’s the point in that? If Melissa or Phoebe cut Cornutus’ heart out, they would hardly try to hide it here. I’m more interested in seeing whether someone could have gotten from here to Cornutus’ room.”
I pulled the only chair in the room over to the window. When I put my head and shoulders through the opening I found myself looking out over the roof of the stable behind the inn. The peak of the roof met the wall of the inn only a couple of feet below me. I wriggled out the window and tested my footing on the roof. Its slope was gentle enough that I could stand.
Tacitus stuck his head out the window. “You’d get a better grip on those tiles with your bare feet than with your sandals.”
I looked up at him and down at the roof. It was covered with rotting garbage and waste which people—too lazy to walk to the nearest slop jar—had tossed out of windows.
“I’ll take my chances in my sandals.”
“Don’t trip over Cornutus’ heart.”
That crack gave me pause. “Surely whoever cut it out wouldn’t just toss it out the window. That act had some significance for the killer.”
“Or he needed a piece of meat for a stew.”
I let go of the window sill, steadied myself by keeping one hand on the wall of the inn, and began walking down the roof toward where I thought Cornutus’ room was. Some of the second-floor rooms didn’t have windows because they were covered by the stable roof. Three rooms over from Melissa’s room, under the second window that I came to on the second floor, I noticed the wall was streaked with vomit. Mine and Tacitus’, I was sure.
The window of Cornutus’ room was at shoulder height. I could see the room was unoccupied. Hoisting myself up into a window at this height proved to be more difficult than lowering myself out of Melissa’s window. I scraped my knees and made a good bit of noise in my efforts. But it could be done, I was sure, by a reasonably agile person, someone determined to gain entry to the room. Could a woman do it alone? What if she had someone to give her a boost . . . ?
Without any warning a potful of human waste from a third-floor window landed a few steps farther down the roof, splattering my feet and lower legs.
“Damn you! Use the slop jar!” I yelled. Then I retreated to Melissa’s window.
* * * *
I gave my sandals to Damon to be burned or buried. Thrifty soul that he is, he tried to assure me they could be cleaned. Even if they could, I told him, I didn’t want them on my feet again.
A bath and a vigorous massage from Tacitus’ deaf slave restored my spirits. While the man worked on us we mulled over, in low voices in Latin, the implications of my little expedition onto the roof.
“Clearly Cornutus’ female slaves can’t be removed from suspicion,” I said.
“But,” Tacitus countered, “we don’t know for certain that the killer entered through the window.”
We had agreed to continue to talk about the person who cut Cornutus up as ‘the killer’, in case anyone should overhear us. I was still convinced the real murderer was the one who gave him poison earlier in the evening. But that secret had to remain among three people—Tacitus, Luke, and me. Finding the person who cut Cornutus’ heart out was also important. Especially if I was the intended victim.
“Granted, the killer could have used the door,” I said. “It was late at night. But the women are either suspects or they’re witnesses to the fact that no one went in through the window. We’ll have to find out how long they actually stayed on the roof.”
“It would take a fairly small person to get in through the window,” Tacitus said. “A woman or a man no larger than yourself. I mean no offense.”
“And I take none. I don’t pretend to be the epitome of Roman manhood. I don’t think a man my size—or a woman—would plan to attack someone as large as Cornutus unless the assailant was sure Cornutus couldn’t fight back.”
“So you think someone drugged him in the hope of rendering him unconscious, but not necessarily intending to kill him.”
I rubbed my eyes, as if that would make the answer to this puzzle clearer. “I remain convinced the poisoner and the knifer were not the same person. Cornutus was poisoned first, and poisoners aim to kill, not immobilize. Then, once you’ve killed somebody, you don’t need to kill him again. So, I believe we’re looking for two people. And a missing heart. Beyond that I’m not sure of anything.
It’s been two days and I don’t feel I’m any closer to the answers.”
“But,” Tacitus said, “what is the likelihood that two different people would decide to kill the same man on the same night? If there were two killers, isn’t it more likely there were two intended victims? And if somebody thought you were in Cornutus’ room, was one of those victims meant to be you?”
Some of his questions just posed a challenge. That one scared me.
* * * *
Dinner in the inn’s dining room started well when Marcellus made no appearance. I had brought Melissa and another of Cornutus’ slaves, along with two of my own, to attend Tacitus and me and to give them a break from eating their meals in a corner of the kitchen or in the stable. Instead of making them stand behind us during the entire meal, I had a small table set up so they could eat when they weren’t serving us. Melissa had obviously grown accustomed to living like a Roman aristocrat during the last five years, and before the war she had been a free person, apparently of some status. If I could make her a little more comfortable as a reward for her care of Chryseis and in partial repayment for what my uncle’s troops had done to her family, I would make the effort.
My mediocre dinner curdled in my stomach when Marcellus and his entourage entered the dining room with a great show. He seemed to have augmented his troop with some local hangers-on. One of his slaves carried a funeral urn, a quite elaborate one, in the gaudy Eastern style, overlaid with silver. Nude demigods and heroes, entwined with vines, writhed in contorted positions which the human body couldn’t possibly assume. Cornutus’ full name was engraved across one side. Marcellus wanted everyone to see that he had spared no expense in packing up the ashes of his ‘friend’ for the trip to Rome.
“Ah, Gaius Pliny, you’re here,” he said. “I can deliver this to you and discharge my responsibility.” He snapped his fingers and motioned to the slave carrying the urn, who stepped forward and deposited the thing beside my chair. I didn’t know quite how to react. An urn filled with a dead man’s ashes does nothing to lift the mood in a dining room. I also resented Marcellus’ smugness. He had poisoned Cornutus in some way, I was convinced of it. Now he had destroyed all evidence of the crime and was flaunting it in front of everyone, practically daring me to prove it. Because of the ‘second murder’ later in the evening, he thought we didn’t even know about the first.
Laughing with his sycophants, Marcellus settled at a table. One of his slaves ran upstairs and returned quickly with a plate and a wine cup, which he set down in front of Marcellus.
My attention was drawn away from the odd little scene by a stifled sob behind me. Melissa, her hands over her mouth, could not stop her tears. For the first time it struck me that she had lost her lover—her husband in all but name—and yet she could not go through the rituals of mourning which society allows to widows. I caught her eye and nodded her permission to leave the dining room. Everyone fell silent and watched her departure.
Lysimachus’ rich baritone broke the trance. “What a waste to weep over the dead. As Euripides says in the Heraclidae, ‘I don’t long to die, but when I leave life I won’t grieve at all’. Or, as the divine Plato put it in the Laws, ‘Death is not the worst that can happen to men’.”
“But did Euripides or Plato lose someone very dear to them?” I asked, suddenly thinking of my uncle’s death.
Lysimachus ignored me. This was probably some set piece he had rehearsed and he wasn’t going to let himself be blown off course. “All the great thinkers remind us that it is our fear of death, rather than death itself, that is our burden. In the words of Euripides again, ‘We know what it is to live, but ignorance of death makes everyone afraid to leave the light of day’.”
He was making the opening gambit in a game often played at dinners by people who pretend to erudition. One person proposes a topic and quotes a few lines from some poet or philosopher. Other guests are expected to chime in with other relevant quotations.
Tacitus kept the game going. “Our Seneca said something along those lines: ‘Death is among those things which are not evil but have the appearance of evil’.”
That seemed to give Lysimachus an extra gust for his sails, as if the windbag needed it. “Quite so! In the words of the divine Plato, ‘The fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good’.”
Marcus Carolus spoke up, slurring a bit drunkenly. “Cicero said it best, ‘The happiest fate is not to be born; the next happiest is to die very early’.”
Until that point Luke and Timothy had been eating quietly in the far corner of the dining room. I had noted, with some surprise, Tiberius Saturninus sitting with them. Now Luke cleared his throat and said, “He’s not the only one to feel that despair. Consider this line: ‘Why did I not perish at birth and die as I came from the womb?’”
Everyone fell silent. To quote an obscure source destroyed the rhythm of the game.
“Who said that?” I asked.
“It comes from one of the holy books of the Jews, about a man named Job.”
Tacitus’ interest was piqued. “Are you a Jew?” I had wondered the same thing about both Luke and Timothy. My observation in the bath house made it clear Luke was not circumcised, so he could hardly have been a Jew. That barbaric ritual is performed on all their male infants and on any males who join the cult as adults.
“No, I’m not,” Luke replied, “but I have read many of their books. There is much wisdom in them about the whole course of life, and about death.”
Orophernes—my chief spy—who was dining with Lysimachus, picked up that theme again and said, “Cornutus’ was such a tragic death. Gaius Pliny, have you learned any more about who’s responsible?”
I knew I had to phrase my answer very carefully. Appear to be doing something without letting everybody know what we were doing. “We will report our findings to the governor when he arrives, probably tomorrow.”
Gaius Sempronius caught me off-guard with a question, damn him. “What about Cornutus’ slave girl, the pretty golden-haired one, who disappeared? Have you found her?”
“We’re working on that,” I replied. “I believe we’ll get her back soon.” It wasn’t an entirely dishonest answer. If our plan to restore her memory proved successful tonight, we would in fact have her back whole.
“But, my lord,” said Pamphile, plopping a plate on a nearby table, “she’s at the house of Apelles the boularch. Half of Smyrna knows that.”
And now, thanks to you and a bunch of gossipy slaves, I thought, so does Marcellus.
* * * *
My anger at Pamphile for spilling what I thought was a carefully guarded secret curbed my appetite entirely, so I got up and left the dining room. On the second-floor landing of the stairway I found Melissa. Her face was streaked from crying and the front of her dress was torn.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.
“No, my lord. Thank you.” She sniffled several times and wiped her eyes on a corner of her gown. “I apologize for being upset. I know slaves aren’t supposed to feel anything. But he wasn’t just my master. I loved him so much.”
I had never before found myself in such a dilemma. This woman hated me and my family, with some justification. She might have tried to kill me. She was someone else’s slave. I had no reason to feel any sympathy for her. I ought to squeeze my way past her and go on to my room. Instead I took her in my arms. She kept her arms folded across her chest but accepted my embrace.
“They wouldn’t . . . let me go to his funeral,” she said as the tears started again, dampening the right shoulder of my tunic. I could appreciate the uncertainty of her situation. She was supposed to show only a slave’s sorrow for a dead master, but she felt the grief of one who has lost a lover and the fear of a slave who doesn’t know what the future holds for her.
“Who wouldn�
�t let you go?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“Marcellus and his people.”
When her crying subsided again I said, “You’re obviously very upset. Should we postpone our re-enactment of Chryseis’ branding scene to another time? Are you up to it?”
She pulled away from me and straightened her clothes and hair. “Thank you for your concern, my lord. I can be ready. I just don’t think it’s wise to put her through that. I know you and the doctor believe it’s a good idea, but I wish you could give her a little more time to recover on her own.”
“You’re being too presumptuous,” I snapped. “Luke thinks this is what we should do, and it’s not your place to question his judgment.” I was glad she wasn’t my slave. Her spirit would make her very difficult to handle.
She bowed her head. “Forgive me, my lord, but Chryseis is like a daughter to me. I will do anything to protect her. Can’t we see if her memory returns gradually? That sometimes happens, doesn’t it?”
“Luke says it might take days, even months, if it ever happens that way. We don’t have time to wait. If she knows something that might lead us to Cornutus’ killer, we have to find out what it is.”
“But, my lord, she’s only a child.”
“Hardly. If she were a free woman, she would be married by now.”
I could see instantly that my remark had the effect of a flint struck against a pile of dry grass. A flame flashed in Melissa’s eyes.
“Yes, my lord. If she were free . . .”
“I won’t argue with you, Melissa. Luke and I have decided what is to be done. We will be as gentle with Chryseis as we can. You need to help us—and her—to make this experiment as effective as possible. Now, that is the end of the matter.”
She bit her lip. “As you wish, my lord.”
It’s funny how a slave can say exactly the words she’s supposed to say, but convey an entirely different message in the tone of her voice, the look in her eye, the very way she moves.
* * * *
All Roads Lead to Murder Page 14