by Tom Holt
But there was something about this mess. I'm not soft-hearted or sentimental. So long as it's not me who's dead I generally don't give a damn. But that was pretty bad. It upset me. You know what it reminded me of most? Well imagine a little rich kid, a spoilt brat who goes in for temper tantrums and throwing things about the room — everything just chucked on the floor or against the wall, or left lying and trodden on, dolls bashed against the doorframe till they're busted, good clothes torn, nice things spoiled just for spite —and you look at it and you think how wicked it is, such a waste, how unpleasant. And it wasn't just the dead people, either; oddly enough, it was the wonderful food and the gorgeous silverware and everything of the very best, carefully chosen with love for a really special occasion, and some bunch of bastards had come in and smashed it all up, like big bad boys spoiling a little kid's birthday It was all rather nasty Porno wasn't hard to find; whoever'd taken him out had given him an almighty chop with a sword, starting at the collarbone and going right through to the middle of his chest, through all that bone and gristle. It takes a strong man in a temper to do that, even with a Spanish-pattern sword. I was looking for Lucius Domitius, of course, so I didn't pay him much heed (though I distinctly remember thinking as I stepped over him, Well, there go my six hundred thousand sesterces; fuck, fuck, fuck). But Lucius Domitius wasn't there, not even under a fallen table or in bits. That had to be a good thing, I told myself, he wasn't dead, or at any rate he wasn't dead yet (and, when you think about it, that's the most any of us can say about anybody).
All your troubles will be over, I thought. Yeah, right.
And then I thought, well, she didn't see me running out the door, because I haven't, yet. And then I thought, they sounded awfully pally, Blandinia and that voice, like they knew each other from somewhere. And then I thought, 'All your troubles will be over pretty soon'. The bitch, I thought.
So there I was.
It was time for a decision. I could get out of the room, or I could stay where I was. I could go looking for Lucius Domitius, maybe make some sort of effort to save his life, or I could piss off out of there and out of Rome and out of Italy, and keep going until I fell off the edge of the world or stubbed my toes on the pillars of Hercules, like Ulysses but in reverse. My decision. Nobody to say, Don't be a bloody fool, Galen, or, You can't do that, Galen. Nobody else to stick their oar in or talk me into doing something I'd rather not do. Just me, on my ownsome.
Just me.
Fuck it, I thought. Because, I know me. I know I'm not a hero, or a good man, or very much of a man at all. I'm a little Greek thief with a face like a rat.
People know what to expect from me. I know what to expect from me, and what I'm capable of. Oh, I knew what Callistus would've done. He'd have gone off and found them, found Lucius Domitius, got himself killed trying to rescue him. I knew what Lucius Domitius would've done, if it'd been the other way round and I was the one who'd been dragged off. He'd have gone off and found me, got himself killed. But I knew me, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to run away So that's what I did.
It was a good plan, too, one of my better ideas. Shame it didn't work out.
I got as far as the main gate. I stopped, looked round, listened carefully — attention to detail, see — and then I took one step into the street, at which point someone grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me up against the wall.
'Right,' he said. 'Name.'
That was an odd question. Either they already knew who I was or they had no reason to care, so long as they had me. 'Name,' the voice repeated impatiently, and it occurred to me that maybe I was in the shit but in some different shit, not the shit I'd been expecting.
'Hyacinthus,' I replied, picking a name at random.
'Fine,' said the voice. 'Now, what were you doing in that house?'
And then, of course, I knew who it was pushing me up against the wall. Only the bloody watch. I could have wet myself laughing, if I hadn't widdled it all down my leg out of sheer terror when I was hiding behind the curtain. Oh, didn't I mention that? Well, it didn't seem the sort of thing you'd want to know.
'What house?' I said, stupidly 'The house you just came out of,' the voice said. 'Turn round, slowly, and let's have a look at you.
Yes, it was a watch sergeant. Typical specimen of the breed: big, craggy-faced Italian with a hard, round paunch under his coat of rings. Behind him, five bored-looking troopers, with spears and swords. And where were you bastards when we needed you?
'Only,' the sergeant went on, 'I know for a fact that house is empty. Been empty for years, ever since Philippus Maro was put to death for treason. So what were you doing in there?'
And then it dawned on me, like a beautiful sunrise. 'All right,' I said, 'you got me. I was looking for something to steal, only the place is empty, like you said. Nothing in there but cobwebs and dead birds.'
The sergeant laughed. 'You aren't from round here,' he said, 'or you'd have known that. God, you're pathetic. There's thousands of houses in this city, and you get done trying to rob an empty one. The gods must hate you.
'Yes,' I said. 'Still, they can't hate me that much, or they'd have had you catch me coming out of a house that wasn't empty, with half a dozen silver plates stuffed up my shirt. Then I'd really have been in the cowplop.'
The sergeant frowned. He hadn't seen it that way Because, you see, I hadn't stolen anything, so he couldn't have me for thieving. I hadn't busted in, the door was obviously open and the lock wasn't damaged, so he couldn't do me for housebreaking. In fact, I was innocent as fresh green oil, straight from the press, and he knew it.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Maybe the gods like you after all.' He let go of my shoulder, but he hadn't said anything about being free to go. It's best to wait for them to spell it out, in my experience. It saves you from getting a spear in the back, for one thing.
'Actually,' I went on, 'it's a bloody good job I ran into you, because I was just on my way to find you.'
That took him by surprise. 'Get away,' he said.
'Straight up,' I said. 'You see, the house isn't all that empty. In fact, it's full of dead bodies.'
He blinked. 'Dead bodies?'
'Couple of dozen, I'd say,' I said, 'though I didn't count them. Murdered, by the look of it. That or they had a really good fight among themselves and there was no one left standing at the end. But that's for you to say, isn't it? After all, that's your department, dead people.'
He must've been an old hand, that sergeant, because he didn't turn a hair when he saw all the blood and bodies. One of his squaddies took one look at the scene and rushed out to throw up, but that sergeant didn't seem bothered at all.
'Well,' he said at last, poking at Licinius Porno's corpse with his toe. 'At least I can be sure you didn't do this, you're far too skinny and weedy to go cutting people in half. Besides, whoever chopped this one, he'd have been sprayed up and down with blood when he went through the poor fucker's neck artery.' He looked round at me, with an expression on his face that told me he'd just thought of something. 'So,' he said, 'if you didn't kill them and you don't know who did — I'm assuming you don't know,' he added meaningfully 'What, me? Haven't a clue, sorry.'
'That's all right then,' the sergeant said, frowning, 'because if you did know and you weren't telling me, that'd make you an accessory after the fact, and you wouldn't like that one bit.'
He was lying, actually I know a bit about the law, the same way mice know a bit about cats. But I wasn't going to tell him that.
'Anyhow,' he went on, 'so you're innocent and you don't know who did it and it's nothing to do with you. So why tell me about it?'
Good question, in the circumstances. Hardly the way you'd expect an incompetent thief to carry on. 'Just being a good citizen, I guess,' I said feebly 'Oh, you're a citizen, are you?' He looked at me. 'Funny I'd have had you down for a Greek, myself.'
He was wrong there, too, because as it happens I actually am a fully fledged, genuine, no-messing Roman citizen
, with rights and everything. I got made one by the emperor himself, what's more —well, by Lucius Domitius, back in the old days, he made Callistus a citizen, and made me one too so Callistus wouldn't moan about me being left out. But that, of course, was another thing I wasn't going to let on to a sergeant of the watch, who might not approve of bosom buddies of the late Nero Caesar. 'Just a figure of speech,' I said. 'What I meant was, I considered it my duty. Like I told you, I was just on my way to find you when you found me.'
'Right,' he said, as if I'd just told him he was really a girl. 'Well, you can feel very proud, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I'm arresting you as a material witness.
Since you're such a dutiful bloke, you won't mind a bit.'
Fuck, I thought. Still, as far as he was concerned I was Hyacinthus the feckless housebreaker. There was a better than even chance that I might end up in the galleys or the mines, but a threat like that hanging over you is cuckoospit when you've been in as many condemned cells as I have. 'Only too pleased to help,' I said, forcing a grin. 'Meanwhile, you've got a mass murder to investigate.'
'Yes, haven't I ever,' he grunted. 'Well, it's out of my league, so we're going back to the watch house, fetch the prefect. Maybe even the city aedile, for something like this. Here,' he called over his shoulder to his men, 'any of you lot recognise any of these?' Dead silence. I guess his squaddies didn't mix with high society very much, for some reason.
So we went to the watchhouse, and on the way, since nobody seemed to want to talk to me, I turned over a few things in my mind: things I'd seen back there in the house, and a few things I hadn't. You'd have thought I'd done enough thinking for one day, but apparently not. With a brain like mine, I can keep it up all day if I have to.
The sergeant — his name was Marcus Trebonianus, for what little that's worth — had been right; the watch captain called the prefect, and the prefect called the aedile, and while we were waiting for him to tear himself away from whatever dinner party he was at, they parked me in a little cell out the back where they wouldn't have to see me and be offended by my unprepossessing features. So there I was, back in the cooler again, just me, four walls, a low ceding with things growing out of it, and a heavy wooden door. I propped my back against a wall, stretched out my legs and tried to relax.
Fat chance. Oh, it wasn't the being in the coop that had me all nervous and edgy. One cell is pretty much like another, and there's bugger all you can do in them, so after a while you learn to sit still and conserve your energy, like a lizard on a warm rock. Generally when I'm locked up on my tod, I close my eyes and imagine sea battles. I can do that for hours and not get bored, not that I'm much of a military buff No, what was making me antsy was not knowing what'd become of Lucius Domitius; was he dead yet, or were they slowly torturing him to death, or what? It made me itch all over to think he might still be alive, even if only just. Any of the moments dripping away from me could have been the moment when he closed his eyes and breathed out the long sigh that empties the chest of the last remaining air; and here I was stuck in a cell, unable to do a damn thing. It was stupid, of course, my being there; it wouldn't help solve anything, even if the idiot watch had a flea's chance in an oven of catching the killers, which they didn't, of course. Honestly, I wonder why the hell cities bother with watchmen and guards. They're no bloody good. Think about it — if they were even a tiny bit competent, I'd have been dangling off a cross years ago. They don't keep the streets safe, they don't catch thieves and murderers, all they do is make life miserable for people like me, who never did them any harm personally And sometimes, like then, for instance, they make it impossible for honest, decent folk to rush off saving their friends' lives and stuff like that. If ever I get to he emperor, first thing I'll do is send them all home, without severance pay I was thinking about that, and a whole bunch of related issues that were keeping my mind so fully occupied that I hadn't had to imagine so much as a rowing boat, when the door swung open and the sergeant came in. He had the same rather confused look on his face, only more so.
'Visitors for you,' he said.
'Really?'
'Apparently Your sister and your cousins.'
'What? I mean, great, thanks. Show them in.'
The sergeant gave me a look you could've started a fire with if you'd had a flint handy 'Beats me how they knew you were here,' he went on. 'You got any ideas about that?'
'Intuition,' I replied. 'Always been very close, my sister and me.'
'Oh. Well, here you go, then.' He stepped back into the passage and beckoned to someone, and who should walk in but my brave rescuers from a day or so back: Amyntas, Scamandrius and the girl, Myrrhine.
'Here's your—' the sergeant started to say, then there was a blur and a scurrying sound, and something shot past him and landed on my chest. 'Oh, thank God,' it said, sounding very much like Myrrhine, 'thank God you're all right, we were so worried.'
'Thanks,' I said, as the other two squatted down on either side of me, looking grave and solemn. 'Um, how did you find me, out of interest?'
'Yeah, I'd like to know that,' the sergeant put in, but Myrrhine gave him a nasty look, and he shut the door behind him.
Amyntas waited to hear his footsteps before he said anything. 'Right,' he said, 'this is what you've got to do. Myrrhine, give him the knife.'
At once Myrrhine stood up and lifted her skirt in a most unladylike fashion. I won't tell you how she'd managed to smuggle a dagger into the cell, but if I hadn't seen it for myself I'd have said it wasn't possible; at any rate, not without doing yourself a nasty injury.
'Hang on,' I said, 'what is all this?'
'It's a jailbreak, you clown,' muttered the other one, Scamandrius. 'Now, you take the knife and as soon as we've gone, you get the guard in here on some pretext or other, and—'
I lifted my head sharply 'No way,' I said. 'I won't do it.'
Amyntas sighed. 'Don't be such a chickenshit,' he said. 'So long as you pick the right moment, when he's looking the other way, it'll be a piece of piss. Just under the ear's a good place; or you can grab his head with one hand, give it a little twist, and—'
'No !' I said. 'Look, I don't know what's going on, but if you think I'm going to murder a Roman soldier, you're out of your minds. The trouble I'm in at the moment is sparrowshit compared to something like that.'
Amyntas smiled. 'That's what you think,' he said. 'Actually, your case is so absolutely fucking desperate, it's probably just as well you didn't know, or you'd be a nervous wreck by now You see,' he went on, 'in an hour or so's time, a bloke is going to show up here and tell the prefect that the little Greek thief he's got in the cells is actually an intimate crony of Nero Caesar's, from the old days.
Furthermore,' he went on, before I could say a word, 'roughly the same message'll go out to a number of prominent citizens in this town, all of whom have urgent reasons of their own from back in the old days for wanting to get hold of you. I may be wrong, but I think that's about as much trouble as it's possible to be in, short of being halfway down the throat of a lion. Of course,' he went on, 'if by some chance you happen not to be here at that time, there won't be much point in sending all those messages. Have you got the picture?'
I looked at the dagger. It was short and thin-bladed and looked like it was everything a top quality functional dagger should be. You could kill somebody with a thing like that. 'Look,' I said, 'you still haven't said what you want me for. Maybe I can do whatever it is you want without leaving this cell, and no need to go around scragging watchmen.'
'Nice thought,' said Amyntas, 'but no dice. Now, soon as you're out of here, I want you to go down the street, like you're heading for the river, and you'll see a couple of guys carrying a small closed sedan chair. Get in the chair, and everything'll be fine. You got that, or shall I run through it for you one more time?'
I frowned. 'How did you know I was here?' I asked. 'And why are you here, anyway?'
'Never you mind about that. There'll be plenty of time to go into all that
later.'
But I lifted my head. 'For pity's sake,' I said, 'you've got to tell me something; not the whole deal, maybe, but at least you can tell me if you know what's happened to—' I nearly said, 'Lucius Domitius,' but I didn't. 'My friend,' I said.
Amyntas laughed. 'Let's not kid around,' he said, 'we all know the score. You mean, your brother Callistus. Well, of course you're worried. But don't be, we've got all that in hand. Now, let's run though the drill one more time.
Knife; out the door; head for the river; sedan chair. All clear?'
'Perfectly,' I said.
Yeah, well, I said that, but it was just to get rid of them. I'd have laughed like a drain, only I didn't want to make him suspicious. 'Fine,' Amyntas said.
'See you soon. Good luck, not that you're going to need it.'
He banged on the door, and the guard opened up and let them out. I waited for a good long time, then banged on the door myself. The guard opened it a crack and stuck his head through.
'Excuse me,' I said, and held out the knife, its point pinched between my thumb and forefinger, like a cook adding ground cumin to a stew. 'My visitors seem to have dropped this. I thought I'd better hand it in.'
The guard stared at me like I'd grown a tail where my legs should have been.
'Where'd you get that?' he rasped.
'Like I just said, one of my cousins dropped it. Careless bugger, I could've cut myself on it.'
'But I searched him myself—' He scowled. 'All right,' he said. 'Stay there, don't fucking well move. I'll be right back.'
He wasn't long, and when he reappeared he had two other guards with him. They hung back in the doorway, swords drawn, while he crept forward at me, like a dog stalking a partridge. 'Right,' he said, when he was just over an arm's length from the knife, 'drop it on the floor, then get back against the wall. And if you're up to something, God have mercy on you.
I shrugged and relaxed my fingers, letting the knife drop. He sidled up to it like a nervous crab and kicked it across the floor to the doorway, where one of his buddies picked it up. 'All right,' he said, relaxing a little but not much.