Murder In-Absentia

by Assaph Mehr

  Typheus paused for a drink of water. His report gave me a more complete view, complementing the gossip I learnt on the streets with gossip from the Senate. It also gave deeper motives for Gaetanicus to want to lash out against the establishment holding him back. His family had a long list of illustrious ancestors, while Corvinus’ family was relatively new to the high echelons of power. However the Decii Corvini were far richer, and their star was currently in ascendancy.

  Corpio echoed my thoughts as he said, “He wouldn’t be the first vir militaris to become impatient with the pace of civilian life, and disillusioned upon his return. I have seen this many times before. Military Men used to having their orders obeyed without question, who suddenly need to engage in oratory to win debates. To be denied the election to rhone at the right age, a thing he must view as his birthright, would surely sit sorely with him.”

  “Last we have Tiberius Pomponius Pulvilus,” said Typheus. “A pedarius — backbencher senator. It seems like he studied in the Collegium Mercatorum, and then served as a minor quaestor there a while back. However when opportunity presented itself about four years ago, he elected to join the senate instead of continuing the cursus honorum within his collegium, although his chances or rising in the Senate are slimmer. He runs a slave trading company, specialising in niche markets rather than volume supply. The company is quite profitable, and his customers mostly belong to the rich elites, who can afford the best. It is rumoured that he sold the Princeps Senatus a Hellican tutor for his young boys for the astronomical sum of four talents of silver. The more malicious tongues say that only three were for the tutor, and one talent was for a young woman, quietly installed in a cosy apartment.”

  “Leaving aside the rumours about our Princeps Senatus,” interjected Corpio, “Pomponius’ decision to become a pedarius in the Senate rather than continue within the Collegium was puzzling. Normally those who embark on the cursus honorum do not switch from the collegia to the Senate. While technically a position of quaestor would allow him to run for aedile or praetor when his time comes, the restrictions placed upon pedarii senators in terms of allowed business practises would mean his income would suffer.”

  “I was also not able to ascertain who his patron is,” added Typheus. “So far he has not been publicly accepted and recognised as a client of anyone of note. It does not mean that he hasn’t been registered, only that we cannot know his ultimate allegiance.”

  “Will this information shed any light on the death of my son?” asked Corpio.

  “It helps me understand the men I will be meeting tomorrow,” I replied. “And it might give me the key to anticipate their actions. I know now more about the ceremony and about the provisions that were needed to carry it out, though I fear I still miss some key pieces to this puzzle. I cannot yet bring you hard evidence against the cabal in the death of your son, or on any other matter, but I am sure I will soon.”

  “I have given some thought to what I might do with such evidence,” said Corpio. “Public prosecution in the courts is out of the question. I would keep my family’s name out of this business. However if you cannot deal with them directly, if you can give me solid evidence — good enough to take to the rhones of the Collegium Incantatorum — I can ensure that they will be dealt with effectively and permanently.”

  * * *

  After my interview with Corpio, I decided on a hunch to go to the Insula Laridae and see if I can find Caeso’s secret lovers’ hideaway that Mahatixa mentioned last night. I made my way to the Pharos, walking along the Vicus Caprificus to the east, catching glimpses of the cliffs and sea to my left and the sloping hill and the bay to my right. I reached the point where the Septentrionali ends in a steep slope, and wound my way down to the Pons Ignis.

  Across the bridge, rather than take the beaten path up to the base of the Pharos I started to look for tracks. I grew up in the city walking the pavements, and my stint with the legions was short and mostly involved just trudging along behind the man in front of me. My wilderness skills were lacking, but luckily this wasn’t a real wilderness. I wandered around the base of the small island, looking for rocky steps one could take with a woman friend to find a secluded corner for a tryst.

  The first such spot I found was indeed occupied by a pair of lovers. I was deep in thought, and my surprise at stumbling upon them was almost as big as theirs. I recovered quicker though, and as they were just a couple of young teenagers escaping their chaperones I shooed them away. They hastened away, giggling and slipping into their clothes, and I had no doubt they would meet here again soon enough.

  The spot they occupied proved unremarkable though. A narrow rock shelf in a shallow alcove the wind had carved into the overhanging cliffs. No features or signs of humans, besides some discarded shards of portable clay amphorae on a rock below.

  I continued to search. I learnt to trust my instincts a long time ago, and they were telling me that meeting Mahatixa last night and hearing her comment about her and Caeso’s love trysts here was not by chance. But when the sun was high in the sky and almost two hours of searching yielded nothing, I was ready to announce to the world that I know nothing on chance comments.

  I sat on the latest of the small rock shelves I had discovered, dangling my feet over the edge. The cliff behind me provided shade, and I enjoyed the cool breeze drying my sweat. I was past the tip on the isle, and I looked out across the opening of the Bay of Egretia and gazed at the many ships making their way in and out of the bay.

  A wave crashed below me, and the wind carried a spray of ocean water to my face, hinting it was time to go back. As I stood up and faced the cliff again, I noticed a shallow step in the stone beyond a vine climbing down from a rock outcrop, where I thought the path ended. I grabbed onto the vine for support, and stepped around the rock outcrop and onto the cramped space behind it. The foothold was precarious, but beyond it I could see a narrow crack in the cliff face. I put my hand around the edge of the crack and swung my leg around it. It found purchase, and as I edged around the crack I found myself in a low and narrow cave.

  Remembering the last time I retraced Caeso into a cave on top of Mons Krodus, I proceeded very carefully. I could feel a soft tingling on my skin, but it was not the kind of feeling I get when in the presence of a place occupied by a numen. This felt more like the traces of magia elementorum, which I attributed to the Pharos above me. I had the same feeling from the moment I stepped off the Pons Ignis onto the isle, yet somehow inside this little cave it had intensified.

  As the cave mouth was facing away from the sun, the interior was dark. I stepped outside and around the edge of the opening, and with my knife managed to cut a length of green vine. I climbed back to the cave, sat down near the opening and started to work on the vine. I stripped the leaves, and then with a bit of muttered incantations and incessant rubbing, I had it dried and twisted into a tight cord within a few minutes. It was a handy trick I had learnt many years ago from a woodsman, when we were stuck in a mountain cave waiting for a storm to pass. Another household charm to create a spark without a flint, and I soon held an improvised burning wick that gave me enough light to see inside the small cave. The ambient magia from the Pharos made this whole process easy and quick.

  The cave was not large, only a few paces deep. The space was narrow and low, and rather empty. At the back was a little alcove, hidden from view from the front of the cave. I carried my burning wick, and saw the remains of a small fire and some clay jars heaped in the corner. I started to carefully sort the pile of jars and inspect their contents. There were also a few utensils strewn between them, a bronze mortar and pestle, measuring spoons, utility knives and needles. Everything was covered with dust. Most of the pots and jugs were empty, but a few held traces of herbs and other supplies that I recognised from the ingredients list I had been researching for the Rite of Pelegrinus.

  A couple of narrow necked and stoppered jars contained thick liquids. Carried to the sunlight near the entrance, one liquid was red and
the other a dark blue. Both smelled like ink, though not the usual kind made from squid.

  I went back inside to look around some more. As I moved, I disturbed the ashes in the small fire and noticed that in between them were a few scraps of burnt paper scrolls. I knelt and put my wick down away from the ashes, and started to carefully extract all the burnt bits of paper I could find. I kept those that had remains of writings and drawings, and put them in one of the empty jars that seemed cleanest and driest.

  I found nothing else of note, so picked up the two ink jars and the one containing the scraps of paper, and made my way back. It would be a long walk around the base of the Insula Laridae, across the bridge, and all the way along the shores of the bay to the south side. I elected instead to hire a boat, and charge the expense later to Corpio. The advantages of working for a rich customer, with well-negotiated terms.

  * * *

  I reached home by mid-afternoon. I went straight into my study to place the jars I retrieved from the cave on the table, and then stepped back out to the garden to wash my face in the fountain. The horribly leering faun dispensing the water from his engorged phallus seemed almost to wink at me, in a way that would make even jaded whores uncomfortable.

  I was about to head back to my study when Dascha ambled into the garden. “A man was here to see you earlier, domine.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He would not say. Insisted on speaking only with you. Was waiting outside, skulking behind the tree, until I emptied a chamber pot over the wall at him.”

  “You did what? Why would you do such a thing? He could have been a customer!”

  “He wasn’t”, Dascha said with extreme self-assurance. “I saw him this morning, following me around. He was talking to the neighbours too, before he came knocking at our door. Young men take the old for slow and stupid, but my mind is just as good as it ever was, dominillus. That man was asking far too many questions about you.”

  My indignation cooled down. Dascha always used the diminutive of ‘master’ when she wanted to remind me that she has been with my family for longer than I was alive, and that she knew her business. A subtle way for a slave to put a young master in his place.

  “Dinner will be ready shortly,” continued Dascha. “Will you eat in the triclinium or your study?”

  “In my study, please,” I said and went there myself.

  So someone was making inquiries after me. It could be unrelated to my current case of course, a prospective client perhaps — but I do not believe in coincidences. I wondered what took the cabal so long to start asking around. I had barged in on their meeting uninvited and unannounced over a month ago. I would have expected their curiosity to be piqued and to start asking about me sooner. Perhaps they had, and I missed it when I was away. I would have to be careful when I next met them, although my cover story was sufficiently close to the truth that their investigations were unlikely to uncover anything beyond my generally disreputable background.

  First I opened the jars containing the coloured liquid. In full light they looked quite sludgy. I poured a sample out to a clay bowl and mixed it with water. It appeared and felt like ink. I mixed samples of the two and created a shade of purple, and when droplets stained my hand the colours reminded me of Caeso’s tattoos.

  I made sure to wash my hands thoroughly.

  Next I pored over the burnt pieces of paper. I laid them out carefully before me, like a puzzle with most of its pieces missing. I deciphered one by one, and made notes. That it was the text for the Rite of Pelegrinus I had no doubt. The snippets I found read remarkably like the scroll I retrieved from the library in Ephemezica. There were mentions of ink and stigmas, of chants and rituals.

  I got my final confirmation when I found a largish snippet containing the symbol for Aten — that crazy unity of the multitude that Akhirabus was talking about. I compared it to the place in the text from Ephemezica, and found some differences in the surrounding text. I would have to take it to Akhirabus for final analysis. Rather than take the full scroll, I prepared a wax tablet with a few paragraphs of context from the two versions for Akhirabus, and then retired for the night.

  Chapter XXIV

  The next day was the day Fufidius told me to meet with the cabal, and I had to prepare myself for the night. I started at the Pickled Eel with a very hungover Crassitius. His tirade of invective at me and my ancestors was highly descriptive and punctuated by miserable groans. In the end he did promise to send Borax to accompany me later.

  My next stop was not far from there on the street of the embalmers. I soon sat with Akhirabus in his back office, looking at him hum and haw at the wax tablet in front of him.

  “There are subtle differences between the two versions,” he said. “You say this one is the one actually used?” he tapped on the side of the wax tablet where I copied the burnt fragments I found in the cave. “As I told you before, there are many ways to interpret — or misinterpret! — the Aten symbol. This fragment is not big enough for proper context, yet from what I can piece together I would say that the implications are that the ritual must all come together and be completed between sundown and sunrise. Understand that Aten also rather simplistically represents the sun, for the religiously minded at least.

  “However, in the source you first found and brought me, the interpretation is quite different. Here, the Aten is taken to be the celestial unity as I have mentioned before. It would not mean the meeting of sun and stars at dusk — rather during an eclipse! A solar eclipse to be precise, when the sun, moon and earth are in alignment and the stars are visible.”

  I knew enough of incantations and rituals to understand the implications. “This would explain why the ceremony failed.” I said. “Assuming that the Ephemezican copy is correct, and this one is but a poor mistranslation.”

  “It is hard to tell,” said Akhirabus. “These rituals are complex and practised rarely, successfully rarer still. It could be this, or any other number of errors in understanding and execution. You cannot be certain which one is the right one, and failed attempts do not encourage a repeat.”

  “Do not worry.” I said, “I plan to destroy all evidence of this rite, together with the men who performed it.”

  My last stop that morning was in the shop of Brewyn. I showed him the ink and needles I found in the cave, and he confirmed that they can be used to inscribe tattoos, and would indeed create the same marks he saw on the corpse of Caeso.

  “Still, there is nothing of power inherent in them,” he said to me as he rubbed a bit of the inks between his fingers. “Of the many ways to create stigmas, an ink such as this is merely a conduit, not a carrier of power itself. And as a conduit, there are still many ways to draw the power in. Most will do so gradually, the stigma being built together with the tattoo. The ones I saw though, I tell you were like a lightning rod. The power rushed in at full force, all at once.”

  * * *

  I made my way back home, planning on a meal of leftovers and some rest before tonight. I felt I was missing something crucial. The pieces of the puzzle in my mind just did not fall into place properly, their edges — the evidence and testimonies I have gathered — just did not match.

  Deep in thought about the revelations of the last two days, I wasn’t paying nearly as much attention as I should have. Thus it was that when I opened my front door and stepped in I was taken completely by surprise when the man shoved me roughly from behind and stepped in after me.

  I managed to break my fall with my hands, and roll over to face my assailant. He didn’t waste much time, and was on top of me even as I fell, pinning me to the floor with his weight. I tried reaching inside my tunic for my dagger, but he grabbed me by the front of my tunic with his left hand and slapped me hard across my jaw with his right.

  “Where is it, matris futuor? Where are the scrolls?” he demanded. Behind him I saw another man standing in the doorway.

  I wasn’t going to answer, and concentrated on pushing him off. I gripped his
arms, but before I could throw him off he jumped up and landed with both knees into my midsection. By the time I managed to draw a breath, he held a knife to my throat.

  “The scrolls, cacator, the scrolls you got in Ephemezica. Where are they?” He spat on my face.

  “Gone,” I said, “memorised and burnt.”

  “Even better,” he gave me an evil grin, “I get to torture y…” He was interrupted by a loud clanging and a shout. The clang was made by Dascha as she came suddenly around the corner and struck his head with a heavy iron skillet, caving his skull in and sending bits of bone and brain splattering on my face. The shout was from the other man at the door, taken by surprise as well. I struggled to free myself from the weight of the man on top of me, as the other man lunged forward with his sword to strike at Dascha.

  He almost got to her, but was jerked back with a half strangled grunt. He stopped, and looked dumbly down to his midsection where a bloody metal point was sticking out. He fell forward to his knees with a sickening squelching sound as he slid down along the blade stuck into him. Behind him stood Borax, his left hand still holding the man’s cloak he used to yank him, and his right holding his long bloodied dagger.

  The man was wheezing his last though, and thanks would have to wait. I got up, kicked the knife away from the man’s hand. Still breathing hard I knelt down next to him and said, “You are dying. You can die quickly and receive the funeral rites if you tell me who sent you, or you can be assured that I will desecrate your body before feeding it to the dogs.” I pressed onto his wound to stress the point, and he gasped in pain. “Your shade will never know rest. Who sent you?!”

  He coughed and spat blood. “Philokrates.” He coughed again. “That’s the only name I heard from our leader.” He coughed up more blood and his eyes started to glaze over.