Catilina's riddle rsr-3

by Steven Saylor

  'Of course,' he said, but I saw him swallow hard as he stooped to take hold of one of the legs while I reached under the corpse's shoulders. He gave a shudder as his hands touched the clammy flesh. So did I.

  I grunted and stepped back, brushing straw from my hands. 'No apparent wounds to the back, either. And yet it isn't easy to murder a man by cutting off his head — think about it. You have to have some way to hold him still. Perhaps they cut his throat, or strangled him first. That would be hard to tell, since it won't be easy to find any bruises on his neck amid the gore.'

  While I knelt to have a closer look, Meto stepped discreetly back and covered his mouth with one hand. He had turned considerably paler, though he was still several shades darker than the corpse, which was as white as a fish's belly.

  'He wasn't killed this morning, that's for sure,' I said.

  'How can you tell?'

  "The body is cold and stiff, and all its colour is gone. It takes time for that to happen. Physicians say that the lungs are like bellows, heating the blood. Even after they stop working, the body stays warm for quite some time, like a coal slowly losing its heat. Also, look at the wound itself See how the blood is clotted and the wound gone dry. The fresher the wound, the more it would seep. This cut must be at least a day old to have dried so completely. See, there's not even any blood on the straw below. And yet he can't have been dead for too long, because even in this heat the body has not begun to smell too strongly. Here, Meto, step closer. Observe the wound with me.'

  He obeyed, but with considerable hesitation. 'What else can we observe from the wound itself?' I said.

  He shrugged and made a face.

  'Observe how cleanly the cutting was done. A very sharp, very broad blade, I should think, and accomplished with what appears to have been a single blow, the way that chickens are decapitated on a chopping block. There are no signs of hacking or sawing. Indeed, I can even see traces of the blade's particular grain, the way one can see the serrations of a knife after it has sliced through a roast. The subsequent outpouring of blood should have obscured all such details, don't you think? I wonder, could the cutting have been done after the blood had already dried within the body? If so, the decapitation had nothing to do with the cause of death. Now why would anyone decapitate a dead body and then hide it in plain sight in my stable?'

  I felt a flash of anger, a fury at being violated, but I swallowed hard and suppressed it. So long as I could simply play an old familiar role — examining a corpse for clues, dispassionately studying a situation — I knew I could keep a level head. I felt incredibly attentive and alert, and everything around me had taken on a preternatural clarity — the smell of straw and horse dung, the heat of the day, the swirling motes of dust captured in bars of sunlight. Yet at the same time a part of me had gone numb.

  I stepped back. 'What else can we tell about him? You say he looks rather heavy about the middle, Meto, but to me he also looks rather gaunt in the chest and limbs and buttocks, like a heavy man who has suddenly lost weight. He looks unwell'

  'Papa — the man is dead!' Meto rolled his eyes.

  I sighed and found myself missing my elder son, who would already have grasped all that I had observed and been far ahead of me. But then, Eco had begun his life as a child of the streets and had learned to use his wits of necessity long before I adopted him. Meto had been born a slave in a rich man's villa and had always been rewarded more for cleverness than cunning. I only hoped he would grow into a decent farmer, for a Finder he would never be.

  Still, I persevered. 'What can we tell of his place in the world, Meto? Slave or free?'

  Meto studied the body from head to foot. 'He's not wearing an iron ring,' he offered.

  'Indeed he is not. But that really tells us nothing. A citizen's iron ring is easily removed, and the opposite — to slip such a ring onto a slave's finger — would have been just as easy. Nemo might be a patrician for all we know, whose gold ring has been pilfered. However, sometimes an iron ring does leave a stain or a band of paler flesh on its wearer's finger. I see none, do you?'

  Meto shook his head.

  'Still, inconclusive. Certainly he wasn't the field slave of some cruel master — there are no shackle marks on his wrists or ankles, no scars on his back from being whipped, no brand marks on his flesh. All in all he looks well taken care of) and not used to hard labour. See, there are no heavy calluses on his hands or feet, and his fingernails and toenails are well groomed. Nor did he spend much time outside — his skin is not much darkened by the sun. If only we had his head, we could tell much more…'

  There was a sudden rustling behind us. I gave a start, but it was only Diana running towards us through the straw. A moment later Bethesda appeared in the doorway. Bright sunlight silhouetted the stray tendrils of her coiffed hair and the long, loose stola belted beneath her breasts and again at her waist. She paused in the doorway and then walked resolutely forwards like a woman expecting the worst. When she saw the body her nostrils dilated, her eyes grew wide, and she pressed her lips together until all the colour was gone from them She clutched at her stola and stamped her foot. Bethesda's manner is often imperious or brusque, but I have seldom seen her truly angry. It was a sight to make even the staunchest Roman turn to jelly.

  ‘You see!' she cried. 'Even here! You said that life would be different in the country. No more mobs, no more murders, no more lying awake at night wondering if my children were safe! Ha! All lies!' She spat upon the corpse, then turned and swept out of the stable, hitching up her stola to protect it from the dung.

  Meto staggered back, agog. Diana began to cry. In the sunlit doorway, motes of dust swirled in Bethesda's wake. I then turned my gaze to the corpse, clenched my fists, and muttered a curse against the gods. Meto must have overheard, for when I looked up, he had turned as pale as the headless body at my feet.

  Later, I would tell myself that I should have kept the discovery of the body from Bethesda. Life would have been simpler that way. But that was never an option, of course; Diana would have told her sooner or later, and why not? After such a shock the child needed to be reassured and comforted by her mother. Diana could not be expected to keep such a momentous and terrible discovery to herself.

  It did seem best, if at all possible, to keep the slaves from knowing. Such an incident would inflame their superstitious natures and undermine my own authority, making them unwieldy at best and at worst unreliable or even dangerous. Cato would probably have got rid of the whole lot after such a shock to the household, selling those he could and setting any others free to starve along the roadside. For me, such drastic measures seemed both impractical and cruel, and besides, the slaves might know things I did not. If any of them had betrayed me, I needed to discover why, and for whom If they had not betrayed me, they still might have seen more than they knew. I might ultimately need their knowledge and their help. Something terrible had been unleashed, and I could see neither where it came from nor where it might lead.

  I had to confide in someone, and I chose Aratus. He was, after all, my steward. I swallowed my mistrust, telling myself that I had probably been unfair to him all along. Besides, if he was somehow complicit in the appearance of Nemo, perhaps I could read it in his eyes. When Meto brought Aratus to the stable, the shock on Aratus's race looked quite genuine.

  Aratus knew nothing, had seen nothing; so he assured me. He would tell none of the other slaves; so he vowed. I told him to take a few slaves from their work on the north wall and to dig a hole for the body amid the brambles in the secluded southwest corner of the farm, where the stream cut through the ridge.

  'But what reason shall I give them?' he asked.

  "Think up a reason!' I told him 'Or give them no reason at all. You're the foreman, aren't you? I leave it to you to handle the slaves. But not one of them is to know of this, do you understand? And if any of them seems to have any knowledge of it, report to me at once!'

  That afternoon, after the trench was ready, I instructed
Aratus to set the slaves to some task at the far corner of the farm. Meto, Aratus, and I wrapped the corpse in a sheet and tied it to a cart, then pushed the cart over the rocky soil to the place where the hole had been dug. It did not take us long to cover the body with the moist soil, and then to scatter rocks and uprooted brambles over the torn earth. It would have been unseemly to consign even a naked, anonymous, and headless corpse to the earth without some monument, and it would have been unwise to bury any man without properly propitiating his shade, lest we invite his lemur to haunt the farm forever. So I made sure that black beans were buried with the corpse, and as head of the household I threw a handful of the same beans over my shoulder onto the grave when we were done.

  Many days later, I returned to the place and drove a slender stele made of marble into the gravesite, which was almost hidden by thorns. On the stele, reading downward, were inscribed these letters:

  N E M O

  The artisan in the village had complained that it was an odd request, engraving a stele for Nobody, but he had accepted my silver readily enough.

  The feverish spell of lovemaking between Bethesda and myself was definitely over, as I discovered that night. She turned her shoulder to me when I came to bed, and when I tried to talk to her about the body in the stable, she pulled a pillow over her head.

  ‘I complained that the circumstance was not of my devising; that I knew no more about the body and how it came to be there than she did; that I would do all I could to protect her and the children. She made no answer. Eventually I heard her snoring. Insulted and angry, I left the room.

  I paced for a long time in the formal courtyard, circling the pond over and over. I paced for so long that I was able to watch the moon shadow of the roof slide slowly across the paving stones. Half the world was black shadow and the other half a soft, hazy silver, and I strode back and forth between the two.

  At last I left the courtyard. I looked in on Meto and Diana in their little rooms and found each of them sleeping soundly and apparently without dreams.

  I followed the short hallway to my library. I lit a lamp and hung it above my writing table. I spread a piece of parchment before me and pulled the inkstand nearer. I dipped a reed into the ink and began to write. Aratus did most of my letter writing; my hand was clumsy and I made a number of spots on the parchment before I got the reed to flow properly. I wrote:

  To my beloved son Eco at his house in Rome, greetings from his beloved father at the farm in Etruria.

  Life here in the countryside continues to be full of surprises. It is not nearly as dull as you might imagine. I know you love the excitement of Rome, but I think you would be surprised at how much goes on here.

  Keep in mind that we celebrate Meto's sixteenth birthday next month, when he will put on his manly toga. The house in Rome will need to be at its best to receive a number of distinguished (and some not-so-distinguished) visitors. The distinguished visitors will need to be impressed by the family's best ornaments and plate; the not-so-distinguished ones will need to be kept from stealing them. I trust your new wife will be up to the task of organizing and overseeing such an event. Bethesda will probably take over matters anyway.

  By the way, I have a small favour to ask. Do this discreetly, please. There is a young man named Marcus Caelius, a protege of Cicero and of Crassus. Send him a message for me. Say: 'The body without a head.' I realize this makes no sense; it is in the way of a private joke. He will understand.

  I think of you often. You are missed by everyone. I know you are busy in the city. I hope you are exercising all reasonable caution and keeping yourself sate from harm, as is

  your loving father.

  I sat for a while to let the ink dry, then rolled up the parchment and slipped it into a cylindrical case, tied it and sealed it and pressed my ring into the soft wax. In the morning I would dispatch a slave to take it to Rome.

  I stepped into the herb garden. No bees hovered there, having all retired to their hives for the night, but a pair of great luminous moths flitted among the vines. The hour was very late, but I did not feel sleepy. Instead I felt as I had earlier that day in the stable — preternaturally alert, seeing and hearing everything around me with an uncanny clarity. The full moonlight was so bright that I could see everything almost as if by daylight, as if the sun had simply turned to blue fire instead of yellow. All was normal, and yet not normal at all. As earlier in the day, I felt the same strange numbness in the midst of acute perception.

  I passed through the gate and walked towards the hillside until I found myself at the southwest comer of the estate, not because that was where we had buried the stranger, but because it was the most secluded place on the farm.

  I had tried to flee from Rome, but Rome was too great. Within this world, there is no escape from her. Rome is like a net, and men are fish caught in her sweep. Even if a man could make himself so small as to pass through the net, he would only find himself the prey of larger men; and even if he could be so clever and so fast as to escape those other men, he would still find himself at the mercy of Fortune, which is the sea in which we swim, and of the Fates, which are the crags upon which we are pounded. There is no escape.

  And so I sat on a rock and gathered up the hem of my tunic and rolled it into a ball, then pressed it to my mouth and screamed into it. I screamed as loudly as I could, and no one heard — not Bethesda softly snoring, nor the slaves, nor Meto and Diana sound asleep in their beds. All day I had held that scream inside me. Something unexpected and terrible had occurred. I had examined the situation, learned what I could from it, attempted to control it. But from the first moment I saw the headless corpse, all I had really wanted to do was to scream — the furious anguished scream of the wolf caught in a trap, of the eagle thrust into a cage.

  Part Two

  Candidatus

  VIII

  For the next several days I waited in anticipation of a visitor who did not come.

  In the meantime life resumed its normal rhythm. Work on the farm continued as always. Aratus oversaw the field slaves and worked on my accounts, Congrio cooked, the house slaves went about their business.

  The days grew longer and hotter, and the nights grew warmer, except in my bed, where things were quite chilly. Bethesda never once queried me about the body in the stable; she had decided long ago, and rightly, since I was then her master, that if my work brought danger into our lives, then dealing with it was my worry, not hers. Her outburst in the stable had been a rare occurrence, and she clearly did not intend to repeat it and would bite her tongue rather than mention it again. Her unspoken attitude announced that she simply saw no point in wasting her breath on interrogating or chastising me; secretly I knew she was deeply worried.

  Her manner was cool and distant, like that of soldiers' wives who must live with the terrible prospect of losing their husbands and yet partly blame their husbands for such a possibility in the first place, and thus feel anxiety and anger and helplessness all together. Feigned apathy is a protection, a steeling of the will against the implacable Fates. Bethesda's aloofness I had experienced before and grown used to, but mixed with it was a harsh new strain of suspicion and hard scrutiny, as if I were guilty of a deliberate breach of faith and were directly responsible for subjecting her to the shock of Nemo's arrival.

  She was playing a game of patience, I thought, waiting for me to break and tell her all I knew about the corpse and its appearance. I gave in to her more than once, and with an oblique mention of what had happened in the stable let her know I was ready to confide in her, but every time this happened she responded by loudly changing the subject, slamming doors, stalking from the room, and generally making life miserable for everyone in the household. "This wouldn't be happening if I had kept you a slave instead of marrying you,' I would grumble halfheartedly under my breath, but of course there was no one to hear me, and I did not quite believe the words myself

  Meto did not seem particularly upset by the body's unexplained appearance
. His having grown to manhood in my household in Rome had apparently so inured him to such madness that he could take it for granted. As with Bethesda, it was not his worry; in his offhand, unspoken way he let me know that he fully trusted his father to deal with any such contingency, no matter how menacing or outrageous. His faith in me was touching, and all the more so because it was considerably deeper than my faith in myself

  Diana, on the other hand, grew moody and cross, though I think her unhappiness was more to be attributed to the discord between her parents than to the shock of having found Nemo. Or was I fooling myself, minimising the awfulness of the shock of witnessing such a grotesque intrusion into her. secure little world, because to contemplate such ugliness perpetrated on a child, my child, was enough to send me back to the brambles howling into my tunic? I tried my best to show her as much attention as I could, holding her and combing her hair, giving her treats of curdled cream and honey, but she squirmed in my lap, threw her sweets on the ground, and displayed a querulous dissatisfaction with all the world. I sighed and remembered that she was the daughter of her mother, after all.

  Meanwhile, as subtly as I could, I queried the slaves to discover anything they might know about Nemo. I came up with nothing. Aratus, who vowed to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, had no more success. It was as if only we five had ever seen him, and otherwise Nemo had never existed.

  The month of Junius waned. The month of Quinctilis approached, and with it high summer. All the world turned hazy with heat. Mount Argentum to the east shimmered like a wavering reflection in a pond. The stream grew smaller in its banks, and its gurgling voice became a low murmur. Even in the shade it was almost too hot to sleep at midday.

  A visitor arrived at last.

  He did not come through the gate but left the Cassian Way where it veered closest to the ridge at the southeast comer of the farm, and: picked his way through the brambles and oak woods. He was not alone, but accompanied by a hulking giant with straw-coloured hair who looked almost too big for his horse. Together they approached slowly and cautiously, surreptitiously examining the main house and the adjoining fields from a distance before coming closer.