Murder In-Absentia

by Assaph Mehr

  Which was odd, because he was a raving lunatic, who should be far away from here by now.

  I cast my eyes into the well, and saw the body floating in it, face down.

  Whole, and dressed in a tunic.

  As I was looking at it, it bobbed and flipped around and by the filtered moonlight I recognised her…

  But it wasn’t Helena.

  It was Aemilia, Caeso’s cousin who I’ve just met the night before.

  And the well, too, was not the same but filled with a liquid fire instead of water. And the ground was trembling, shaking, rising and falling away beneath my feet. Aemilia opened her eyes and cried to me, reaching to me with her arms, and I reached out to grasp her hand but the very earth was crumbling, and we were falling together into the liquid fire of the well that suddenly loomed so vast and Araxus tapped my shoulder with his staff and I opened my eyes and looked on the concerned face of young Marcus, his hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you alright?” he asked “You started to shake and cried out in pain.”

  We were inside the sibyl’s hut, and my mouth was dry, my mind full of cobwebs.

  I nodded and rose shakily to my feet, stumbled outside. I stepped to the clear pool, knelt and splashed my face with its cold, clean waters.

  Chapter XVI

  I woke up late the next morning, having returned last night well after dark. The sibyl had left me with nothing that would further my investigations of Caeso’s death. I was reasonably certain that he did visit her and had a vision, though of what it showed him and where it led him I was not any wiser. My own vision, hope as I did that it would shine a light, was merely a strange mixture of the demons which tormented me and a face that was fresh on my mind. How it could possibly relate to Caeso, or to anything meaningful, I could not see.

  That left me with the more mundane methods of investigations, namely walking and talking.

  I talked with Publius Corpio’s steward, and a few of the slaves who cared for Caeso while he was here. None added any more information to what I already knew, but that was half-expected. Caeso had stayed mostly by himself after Publius released him. They confirmed he was a love struck little brat from the moment he came until the last few days of his stay. He came back from sailing one day, suddenly full of purpose. I felt it safe to assume that this was due to his visit of the sibyl, not the brothels Drusus had dragged him to. After that day the only other meaningful event was the climbing of the Mons Krodus, something I arranged to do the next day.

  I even tried hunting around in the small town of Kebros that afternoon as well, trying the taverns, gambling houses and brothels that are ever-present in port cities. None could remember a boy matching Caeso’s description, or rather I heard a lot of stories of such boys but none matched what I knew of him. It was a half-hearted attempt, just to ease my mind.

  I made it back to the Corpio mansion in time for a bath and dinner.

  I took my towel with me as I moved from the warm to the hot plunge. I did not see him at first, for the foggy mist over the bath waters was thick and the light was dim, but as I sank my body gingerly into the water, I heard Publius say, “How went your sailing with my boy yesterday?”

  “He was quite eager to show me around the isles,” I said, and added “Your man Ariarathenes was with us, though young Marcus seems quite adept at handling the ship.”

  “He has been accompanying me for a few years now, Marcus, and has a career in shipping ahead of him. He won’t be doing much sailing for himself, but he will need to understand what it takes if he is to run a business.”

  “Very wise of you,” I said, feeling the heat go from my skin deep into my muscles, relaxing me as I submerged my body deeper under the water.

  “Did you learn anything that would shed light on my nephew’s demise? Or did you just revisit all the brothels around the town?” he asked.

  “Possibly, yes. Your son took me to a remote island, to which he previously had directed Caeso. There is an old woman living there, a sibyl. Did you hear about her?”

  “I have heard some of the sailors and townspeople talk, although it sounded more superstition that reality. They leave that island alone, I believe, though sometimes they go there and leave offerings when times are hard. Does she have anything to do with my nephew?”

  “He saw her, on his last week here. Had a prophecy or a vision. Though I could not find the details, I believe the climb on Mons Krodus he took next was related. You may recall his mood changing on those days. Did he mention anything back then?”

  “Not much. At the time I thought he simply found a new diversion for his amorous attentions, something to take his mind off that street mime.” Publius groaned and shifted in the water. “I think it’s time we came out for dinner, pleasant as this may be. My steward has instructions to assist you, but please inform me as you progress. I hope we can get a swift answer to this business, and put it behind us.”

  I got the message.

  Dinner was another family affair, just like the previous day. The menu, which was probably normal fare for the Quinctii Corpiones and the Cornelii, was a cut above what I was used to. I enjoyed it with relish, particularly the fresh oysters and the pipis in wine sauce. These were farmed among the islands, and are an expensive delicacy in Egretia.

  Publius did not bring up the subject of my investigation or of our travel yesterday, and young Marcus was pensive and talked little. The same could not be said about Cornelia and Aemilia.

  “So tell me, dear Felix, how was your trip around the isles with my nephew? Encounter any interesting views?” asked Cornelia maior.

  “Quite lovely,” I replied. “Young Marcus Quinctius here is a fine sailor.”

  “I am sure you must have had an adventure. Please do not be shy and tell of all the details!” she pressed me.

  I looked at Marcus, who was chewing contemplatively on a piece of sticky honey cake. “Marcus has most helpfully provided me with some aid in uncovering clues to Caeso’s whereabouts during his visit here. He has shown me around the islands, places that had an impact on Caeso. We have even visited a sibyl.” I paused to take a bite of cake myself, and wash it down with some wine. “There is indeed a true sibyl on a remote island of this archipelago. I am surprised she has not proven more popular with the visitors to these isles. She confirmed to me that Caeso had visited her, and had drunk her potions. Of course, while no one can say for certain what vision Caeso saw, I did choose to partake in her brews as well.” More cake, more wine. What was I thinking, boasting like that? Quite unlike my usual self. I can only lay the blame at Cornelia’s low cut gown, the lines of her full breasts peeking out of her tunic directly in front of me. “Sibyl’s visions are never clear, yet it is an important step in Caeso’s fateful path. And speaking of paths, I think the time is rather late, and I do hope to get an early start tomorrow climbing mount Krodus. If you will excuse me, I would thank you kindly for your hospitality and bid you good night.”

  “I don’t know if I believe it,” said Aemilia, quite openly. “A real sibyl? Potions? Prophetic vision?”

  “I think it’s time for all of us to go to bed,” interjected Cornelia the younger.

  I rose to my feet, stretched and said, “The visions were real indeed, though their contents mixed with private memories. I will now bid you good night.”

  “Oh, tomorrow our augurs predict rain,” said Cornelia minor. “It will be quite miserable up there. Why don’t you go the next day?”

  “But the day after is the conclusion of the Ludi Florae,” responded her sister. “I know! Why don’t you join us, Felix? The town is holding gladiatorial games, and I am told that this year there will be a special surprise. You shouldn’t be working on the holy day, it’s nefas. After all, the Floralia is dedicated to pleasure.” She looked at me with eyelids half obscuring a mischievous twinkle, and a licentious smile on her lips that warmed my blood.

  “Yes, what a lovely idea!” agreed Cornelia minor, while the look on her husband’s and niec
e’s faces may have suggested otherwise.

  “That is most kind of you,” I said. “Nonetheless, I think I will climb the Mons Krodus tomorrow, rain or not. The death of Caeso haunts me, and I wish to get to the bottom of this.”

  The others were getting up as well, saying their good-nights. I walked out of the triclinium; Aemilia followed me ahead of her mother. “A real sibyl? Why has no one ever heard about her? And what visions could she had given you, that you refuse to tell us?”

  I looked at her, and saw her as I did in my vision — pale, falling, receding, reaching out to me.

  “Young lady, there are more things on this earth than your tutor of philosophies may have told you about. Not everything that the common people know makes it to the scrolls and sheltered discourse of the highborn. And as for my integrity,” — pale, falling, eyes pleading — “I suggest you do not question it again, not without evidence.”

  I turned and left her without another word.

  * * *

  I started early again on the following day, after a bad night plagued by dreams. The same dream as always, this time with Aemilia’s infuriating face instead of Helena’s. An hour before dawn I was already on a horse, riding along the shore road towards the dark mass of Mons Krodus.

  I passed the sleepy town just beginning to wake up, and started on the track that led into the forested slopes. The sky was a pale blue by the time I reached the line of trees. From my already high vantage point I could see dark clouds out to sea, a storm coming.

  Once amongst the trees the world became dark again, a place of shadows and muffled sounds. I walked my horse slowly over the broken path, not to risk her fall and break a leg. I had to duck often to avoid branches, and still got scratches and slaps from leafy protrusions. Once I yelped in pain as with a careless movement I bumped my sore right shoulder against a stout branch, right over the wound from the fight with the pirates. All this exercise was slowing down my healing, even with the special ointments and muttered spells I put on each night.

  By about mid-morning I reached an open clearing. The sky to the north and east was bright and clear. The peak above me looming darkly, lit from behind as it were, and just beyond the western slopes I could see the dark storm clouds approaching.

  I opened my bag and ate some bread and an apple, giving half to the tired horse. I looked at the path going up the hill and it was obvious that I could not continue far on horseback, the path dwindling to a narrow track over broken rocks, sharp turns, gullies. I hobbled the horse and left her to roam the clearing, free to munch on the spring grasses.

  I started the climb up the last part. At first the trees closed over the track, their sagging boughs forcing me to duck and stoop, the loose rocks necessitating careful treading. A few trees had fallen across the way, some looking as if they lay there for a few years. Winter storms and rains had washed stones and debris over the track. I crossed narrow streams, with icy cold water freezing my toes in my sandals.

  After a while the trees began to dwindle. Those that remained were further apart, gnarled and twisted from the wind. This high up the air was getting chilly, and even the Maius sun could not warm me much against the constant breeze. I sweated from exertion, but as soon as I stopped walking the wind chilled me to the bone.

  At long last after mid-day I neared the summit. The path was almost invisible between the scrub and low, hardy bushes. Lichen-covered boulders necessitated a twisting route and careful steps. I finally clambered on top of a particularly large rock, and reached the plateau at the summit. A small flat area, about a stadia in length and half that in width, lay before me. Broken rocks, moss and lichen, low shrubs, and biting, whipping wind. I looked out, half the sky behind me clear and blue, the half in front of me dark grey with tumultuous clouds.

  Our people have a name for the presence that resides in bare hill-tops, under the vast open sky. Today, at the top of Mons Krodus, under a sky half calm and half in turmoil, I had no doubt this presence was real. This presence was a numen, a power of sky and thunder and lightning that made its presence known in the most elemental way. Its name has fallen into disuse amongst the educated elite, in their libraries and marble halls. Out here, I knew and felt what our people knew and felt for millennia before. The presence they called Iovis Pater.

  The wind whipped my hair and tunic about, telling me I need to hurry or risk getting soaked. At the centre of the plateau I saw a large rock formation jutting out from the rubble, and walked towards it. As I circled around it, I came across an old altar of our people. Above a crack in a boulder some ancient people had carved crude lines, semi circles above two shallow indentation, lines angling down, a dark crack in the stone. Together with the scrub at the bottom, the image of a huge, bearded rock-face with its eyes half closed and mouth agape was eerie. Father Iovis of the skies, looking up beyond me at his approaching storm.

  I squeezed into the low, narrow opening. My body obscured the dim light outside, and the cavity was pitch black. I felt the small hairs on my arms tingle, my whole skin becoming charged. There was power in this place, such raw power that even Caeso would have sensed it.

  I groped in the darkness, felt a stone pedestal of sorts. On it lay something hard, made of rock, yet warm to the touch. I could not close my hand around it; it required two hands to lift up and carry outside. Once back in the light I stood examining at the thing in my hands. It was a curiously shaped stone, painted a faded red. I held it up and turned it around, and its shape became clear.

  A heart.

  A gigantic human heart, made of stone, painted red, inside the mouth-cave of a giant.

  As I stood there gaping at it, perplexed as to its origin and purpose, the sky above me split open with a bright flash behind me and a deafening peal of thunder all around, and together with the lightning and the thunder the stone heart in my hands pulsed.

  I cried and dropped it to the ground, took a step back, tripped and fell on my backside. For a moment I just remained there, looking at it dumbly. And then came a second lightning, striking the gravel in front of me, causing the stone heart to fly back inside the open mouth of the shrine, and above it the eyes to shine with light.

  Pebbles of rocks thrown up by the lightning showered me, scraping me with their sharp edges. The clouds opened their contents above me, and in a moment I was drenched from the torrential rain. I scrambled back to the path, barely seeing ahead through the silvery curtains of water. I stumbled down the mountain, slipping and sliding over the wet rocks many times, bruising and scraping myself. When I got to my horse, luckily still in the clearing where I left it, I rode her back down as fast as I dared.

  Chapter XVII

  In contrast to the misery of yesterday, the last day before the Kalends of Maius was blessed with clear skies and fresh smelling air. Feeling still quite miserable and sore after yesterday, I let myself be persuaded by Cornelia maior to join them at the games.

  The town of Kebros, having been an Egretian colony for centuries, had all the amenities of a civilised place. Their circus was a good sized affair, well decorated with bronze and marble statues and able to sit comfortably some twenty thousand people. All those with businesses there, and permanent or temporary dwellings for the rich, had made the town a centre of provincial culture.

  Leaving after breakfast, we travelled in a small convoy. We men were driven in one horse drawn open cart, sitting erect in our togas, while the women were driven in a comfortably shaded ox cart. A train of slaves walked behind us. People from all over the island were making their way as well — on foot, riding horses and mules, or driving carts. The bay was dotted with many anchored ships, residents from other isles having made their way in advance.

  We finally got there by late mid-morning, and having left the horses and carts with the slaves, walked towards the circus edifice. Publius Corpio was one of the more affluent residents of the isles; generations of his family have held magistracies both local and in Egretia. The Quinctii Corpiones had therefore their own priv
ate section along the inner ring of seats. Other people around us found their gate, showed their imprinted clay seal to the ushers and climbed up to their allotted seats. We just leisurely strolled to a gated entrance and walked inside to a lavishly furnished vestibule. Tables were set along the wall, covered with red coloured cloth with geometric green designs. On them lay silver trays laden with pastries and sweetmeats, and pitchers of wine and water stood next to waiting glasses. Slaves were running around, attending to everyone’s needs.

  As this was a public event, the women were dressed modestly in stolas. Cornelia maior was wearing a vermilion stola that did a wonderful job in hinting at her voluptuous curves, while her daughter wore an aquamarine one with an intricate floral design along the hem. In a room full of well-dressed women I still found the both of them standing out, although the looks they gave me — one twinkling, the other disapproving — made the mother a clear winner for me.

  As we mingled and waited for the games to begin, drinking watered wine and eating honey cakes, I watched the people in the room. Publius Corpio was at ease, a born businessman and politician, talking to others of his class. His wife fulfilled her duties, walking with him when other wives were around and disappearing with them when the men turned their conversation into serious matters. Marcus kept close to his father, wearing a tunic of fine wool — a compromise between the long-sleeved tunic of childhood and the toga he would only wear later this year. Publius’ associates seemed to recognise him, and his presence as they discussed important matters was understood as the son being groomed by his father. Cornelia maior and Aemilia walked amongst the guests as well, clearly a part of the elite’s social life here.

  At midday a slave came and announced that the opening ceremonies were about to start. The guests, the elite of Kebric Isles, started to shuffle their way to the private booths along the inner ring of the circus. Somehow I found myself walking next to Cornelia maior, and when we were seated in Corpio’s shaded box she was sitting beside to me at the back row. I would have expected her to sit together with her sister, right in the front. Instead in front of me was Publius, Marcus to his left, and Cornelia minor next to him with Aemilia at her left. The booth was large, enough to entertain several guests as well as the family. I had stayed behind out of respect, though I cannot say I was dismayed when I found Cornelia the elder alongside to me. The sailcloth shading granted a privacy of sorts, and Cornelia kept her gaze out to the sand and the crowd which allowed me to study her profile surreptitiously.