Conspiracies of Rome a-1

by Richard Blake

  ‘Open!’ I cried, banging hard on the gate with the pommel of my sword. ‘We seek information about one of your visitors.’

  No response.

  I banged again, harder. Two of the slaves shouted in unison.

  There was a shuffling sound within. A little slot opened a few feet above my head.

  ‘There are no strangers within,’ an old man quavered. ‘Go away. We have arms, and know how to use them.’

  ‘I seek a priest who visited you this evening,’ I said, trying to sound urgent yet reasonable. ‘I need to know if he is safe within.’

  ‘Go away. There are no strangers within. There have been no visitors. There’s no priest here. If you want to see the abbess, come back in daylight.’

  The slot closed.

  ‘Open this fucking gate,’ I roared, ‘or I’ll have it broken down. Open up now – or I’ll wring your fucking old neck.’

  No response.

  I banged again and again, my sword pommel bouncing back from the solid, nailed timber. A full military assault would have had trouble breaking that down.

  ‘Sir,’ Martin pulled at my cloak, ‘sir, the reverend father isn’t in there. I can get you a search order tomorrow if you want. But we need to look elsewhere now.’

  I sheathed my sword. He was right. But where to look? Rome was gigantic, and Maximin could be anywhere. A full search even of the streets would take days at least. I thought quickly. We’d have to break up into smaller parties.

  ‘You two,’ I spoke to the Lateran slaves, ‘go west.’ To the household slaves: ‘Go east round the wall. Keep going in decreasing circles. We’ll meet in the Forum.’

  To the old watchman and Martin: ‘You come with me.’

  To the old watchman: ‘Where is the most crowded place in Rome at night?’

  ‘That’ll be the Suburra, sir,’ he said. That was the central area of the city. We set off as quickly as the old man could hurry.

  The Suburra was a place of narrow streets with densely packed buildings – some still very tall, others fallen down. The main streets were brightly lit with torches, and crowded with stinking, verminous trash of all conditions. I saw nobles in their shabby robes, the usual assortment of whores and rent boys plying for trade, food sellers, common people, beggars with limbs missing or covered with hideous sores. I saw a party of barbarian pilgrims, staggering with their crosses and jugs of beer as they gawped up at the remaining high buildings.

  Once, I came across a man dressed in very fine clothes. I gathered that one of the slaves carrying him had slipped in the mud and pitched him out of his chair. He now stood screaming over the fallen wretch, while his other three slaves smashed down savage blows with the cudgels they carried for defence. Passers-by stopped to watch and cry encouragement to the three slaves.

  In one of the smaller squares, a crowd had gathered to watch some travelling acrobats who’d stretched a rope between the central column and an upper window. Some boys were dancing on this, high overhead. As I watched, one fell off to a round of applause, landing in a net stretched below.

  From the crowded wine shops came music and raucous laughter.

  But no Maximin.

  I suggested going into one of the wine shops and getting help for the search. Martin warned me off. ‘At best, sir, they’ll be useless. They don’t know what the reverend father looks like. They might even try attacking us to get at your money.’

  We moved on through now dense crowds of revellers. We found ourselves somehow back near the dancing acrobats. I grabbed at one of the more sober spectators. Had he seen a priest? I sketched Maximin’s height and round shape with my hands. He shook his head. I stopped a passer-by, and then another.

  No information.

  With rising desperation, I ran from the square, not caring if the others were keeping up with me. I stopped people at random. I waved a bag of coins. I begged for any information.

  Nothing. No one had seen Maximin.

  ‘You want a priest, big lord?’ a rent boy simpered tipsily at me. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place for that. But you’ll find one down there if you look hard.’ He giggled, pointing down a side street.

  I picked my way over fallen masonry. In a little hollow about twenty feet along, I saw someone in a priest’s robe lying on his back. He was resting on a broken limb from a colossal statue, his face in shadow. Under the robe around his waist was a bulge and little movements.

  I could hear the beating of my heart as I approached. ‘Maximin?’ I called uncertainly. ‘Is that you, Maximin?’

  I pulled the robe back. It wasn’t Maximin. It was a priest being sucked off by a whore. She looked up at me, the lines of her face showing through the glazed chalk paint that stood out in the light from my torch. She opened her mouth in a black, ragged smile. Her client’s great, heavy cock collapsed like a stricken tree.

  ‘I can explain everything, my son,’ the priest began in a round voice.

  I fought back the throbbing in my head and kicked him hard in the belly, and then again. I stepped back to avoid the jet of winey vomit that came from his mouth. He doubled up like a disturbed hedgehog. The whore reached out for the purse tied to his waist. I kicked her in the face. She flew back, her head cracking against more of the smashed statue. I pulled out my sword and raised it ‘Sir,’ Martin was beside me. ‘Sir, we must move on. Morning will be with us soon.’

  We searched and searched. ‘Maximin!’ I cried like a maniac as we ran through the endless, silent streets beyond the Suburra. ‘Maximin, Maximin – where are you?’

  I lost all track of where we could be in that gigantic city. One dark street was very like all others. Some were more ruined, some more blocked with filth and other debris. Some contained a few shifty creatures who scurried to get out of my way. Some were entirely bare of human life.

  A few times, the cloud cover broke, and a momentary gleam of moonlight supplemented our now dying torches.

  Eventually, we reached the Forum. The other searchers were there already. They stood in a tight, silent knot beside the Column of Phocas.

  The Forum itself was still in darkness. But the first light of the morning sun was lighting the gold of the statue from its head down. Soon it would put all the gloom to flight.

  I stopped perhaps five yards from the column. The others stood looking down. Martin hurried forward. As if in one of those dreams where your legs have turned heavy, I forced myself along behind him. At the foot of the column, a little heap lay.

  There were strange colours flashing in my head, and I fought to control spasms of shaking as I made myself walk the last few yards.

  It was Maximin. The head was covered with a piece of cloth. But it was Maximin. I’d known that already.

  The light was strengthening from moment to moment, and I could see all more and more clearly. It was Maximin.

  No, it wasn’t Maximin – it was his body. His body was carefully laid out, the arms folded across his chest. His head was a bloody mass. Blood oozed through the robe. The rats had been at him and had left droppings all around.

  The others stood back.

  ‘Maximin,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, Maximin.’

  I fell to my knees beside him. I raised his cold, little body in a tight embrace. I kissed his grey face. I buried my face in the bloody robe. I wept so that I could hardly breathe for the lump in my throat. Bright flashes of memory ripped through my mind. I saw him in Canterbury when I was first shown into the office he’d shared in a little hut. ‘I really want to learn English well,’ I heard him say, his face oddly soft and sallow in comparison to the northern faces I’d known before. ‘Do you think it can be done before Christmas?’

  I was distantly aware of the arms that parted us as we were both lifted for carrying back to the house on the Caelian Hill.

  20

  The doctor spoke in a prissy, detached voice, as if giving a lecture. ‘There is a contusion here, and another here.’ He pointed at places on the back of the head. ‘However -’ he pulled ba
ck the sheet, again revealing the pale, washed flesh – ‘I believe death was immediately caused by this wound here.’

  He pointed to a little puncture just under the ribcage. ‘This looks like the stab from a military sword. It was made with a force and precision that indicated some professional skill.’ He lifted the right hand. ‘Three fingers missing here. They weren’t found? No – the rats didn’t carry them away. Not, at least, from where he was found.’

  He answered questions from others. I stood silent in the storeroom beside the kitchens where the body had been laid out.

  ‘But even without the other marks, this would indicate a desperate struggle. The victim was struck from behind. He fell -’ pointing to the scuffed knees – ‘but he didn’t go down. He was up and round. You say he carried a staff? This wasn’t found either? I imagine he defended himself. That would explain the lost fingers and the gashes on both arms.

  ‘The stab was upwards, indicating he was on his feet to the last. Bearing in mind the struggle, I’d say there were at least two attackers.’

  I gripped the back of a chair to hold myself up. Marcella had pumped me with wine and something else that tasted bitter. My head was aching, but otherwise clear. But the sudden view of Maximin’s naked body was bringing back the shakes.

  ‘You say he was found with his purse still about him,’ the doctor continued. ‘Even had it been taken, I wouldn’t say this was a common robbery. That generally involves a knife in the back or a garrotte. The killers here were men with regular arms.’

  He stopped and thought. ‘I’m guessing here, but I have the feeling that the blows to the head were not intended to cause death. More likely, the intention was to disable the victim so he could be taken elsewhere… I can’t explain the stab wound. An accident, perhaps, or a sudden change of plan. As it is, I haven’t examined where he was found. But I’m told there was little blood on the ground, and he was laid out. These are facts consistent with a killing elsewhere. On why the body was moved to where it was found, and its arrangement, I cannot possibly comment.’

  There was a question from the diplomat. He spoke clearly and in good Latin. But I had to shake my head in the unaccountably useless effort to understand what he was saying. It was a strange trick my mind had been playing with me on and off all morning.

  ‘When did he die?’ I finally made myself hear the diplomat say.

  ‘From the condition of the body now, and from the intense activity that preceded death,’ the doctor answered, ‘I’d say around the early part of yesterday evening. The Forum isn’t busy at night, but I can’t imagine that the body could have lain undiscovered long there. It would have been left there shortly before you found it. But that is a matter for others to decide. I am not an investigator.’

  He replaced the sheet, turning to face us. ‘I shall need to make a further and more detailed examination. But I will do this in private. You can have my written report later today. In the meantime -’ he looked at me – ‘I think the young man would benefit from sleep. I can prescribe…’ He reached into his bag.

  I shook my head. I needed to stay awake.

  I remember almost nothing of the journey back. I recall waiting at the front gate, supported on both sides, watching the sun turn the tiles of the neighbouring houses a deep red. I recall being helped by Martin and Gretel into a hot bath. I recall being dressed. I recall being held in Marcella’s arms during a fit of sobs, as she comforted me like a child with little lullabies. I remember pressing the gold I’d promised into grateful hands. Above all, I remember standing beside Maximin’s body before it had been washed and prepared for the doctor. Marcella’s potion was just taking effect, putting me into a mood of calm detachment. I was alone. I took up one of the cold, stiffening hands and held it to my breast. The skin was already grown flabby, and it moved oddly over the bones beneath.

  ‘By all that you held holy,’ I said in Latin, ‘I will avenge you.’

  I switched into English, as what I had to say was for no one else. ‘I swear by whatever God or gods may reign in Heaven – I swear by my honour and the love that I bear you – that I will avenge you. I will not rest. I will care nothing for my own safety or comfort. I will regard no laws, human or divine. I will find who did this to you – and I will destroy him. Wherever you have gone, my friend, my father, my everything, you will not go unaccompanied.’

  Now the doctor had arrived and was setting out his instruments in that little room, and we were being moved out into the hall.

  ‘We must take this to the prefect, sir,’ the old watchman told me. He was right. There wasn’t much in Rome of order. But there was a law, and its formalities had to be observed.

  ‘He will eat something first,’ said Marcella in a voice that cut off all chance of objection. ‘He can’t go down to the Basilica in this heat with nothing but wine in his poor belly.’

  As if from nowhere, slaves appeared with bread and olives. I ate without enthusiasm or much awareness.

  Out in the street, among the householders and slaves about their normal business, I felt a little more human. Some gave me sorrowful looks. One of the neighbours I’d seen the night before came over and embraced me, expressing his regrets in a thick accent I couldn’t place.

  I went down to the Basilica with Martin and the old watchman for support.

  ‘Shocking – perfectly shocking,’ said the prefect from behind his desk.

  I sat before him, alone in the office. He’d already had the news, and his sympathy extended to pouring me a cup of wine with his own hands.

  ‘A priest, and so brutally slain,’ he continued. ‘I shall hardly be able to bear reading my copy of the medical report. Have another cup, my dear friend. The wine is from Cyprus. I have it brought in specially. You’ll agree it’s so much finer on the palate than the local muck. Now -’ he leaned across the desk – ‘what brings you to see me?’

  My mouth fell open. ‘I… I want to ask what investigation you will begin. Where I come from, we sort these things out ourselves. I will find the killers myself. But I shall need assistance. You are the civil power in Rome. You know this city. You have men who can help with the search. I’ve come to ask how we can work together in the investigation.’

  The prefect smiled indulgently. ‘Oh dear me, no. I can’t possibly do anything about this. I’m far too busy to sanction any investigation.’

  He lifted a pile of reports. ‘Can you begin to imagine how many murders there are in Rome? There were forty last month alone. There were two last night, including your friend. Not one has been or can be cleared up.

  ‘No – wait – one was cleared up, I think.’ He dug through the pile. ‘Ah, yes. A woman was murdered in her bed. That was another shocking crime. Her breasts were sliced off and her privy parts sewn shut. We solved it when the husband confessed to the local baker, then hanged himself. It was to do with disputed paternity of a child. Or something.’

  He took the sheet in question and added it to a clear space on his desk. He looked at it with a satisfied smile, and poured more wine.

  ‘It’s all to do with resources, you see.’ He took in a mouthful of wine and swilled it round before swallowing. ‘You can’t make bricks without straw.’

  ‘But he was a man of God,’ I said, astonished. ‘You can’t just ignore his being murdered in the street.’

  ‘But was he murdered in the street?’ The prefect leaned forward, pressing his fingers together. He switched into Greek: ‘What did you find outside Populonium?’

  A few years on, and I’d have given him back a look of stony incomprehension. As it was, I said nothing, but perceptibly stiffened.

  ‘You have many accomplishments for a barbarian,’ he said, pleased with his stratagem – not that I could see its purpose. He switched back into Latin. ‘What did you find outside Populonium?’ he asked again. ‘I had positive orders from -’ he waved a hand vaguely in the air – ‘from on high to send a mounted unit all the way over to Populonium. You were saved carrying a reasonab
le amount of gold and what I admit was a most holy relic. But none of this can explain the urgency of my instructions. Tell me – what did you find there?’

  ‘The relic and some other things,’ I said in confusion.

  ‘ What “other things”?’

  Yes, what ‘other things’? I went cold.

  ‘There were some letters,’ I said with dawning horror. ‘There were three sealed letters.’

  ‘Letters?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Letters from whom? To whom? What was in them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maximin had them.’

  ‘Did he read them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The prefect shrugged and took up his cup again.

  I did know. Maximin had forgotten about the things just as I had. Letters hadn’t been on our list of things to grab from those English mercenaries; and since we’d got everything that was on the list, we’d paid no attention to anything else. But it wasn’t the gold or the relic that had primarily got that chase under way. What was it they’d said as they caught up? ‘Don’t let the fat one get away.’ They’d have killed me, sure enough. But Maximin had the letters, and they were after him.

  Maximin had been reminded of the letters in the dispensator’s office. That was why he wanted me out of the way that evening. He’d wanted time to read and think. What had he found? Whatever it was, it must have been big: he’d still been disturbed next morning. That explained his anger with me.

  Why hadn’t I picked up on this? Why had I spent the morning prancing about in fine clothes? If I hadn’t been so full of myself, and I knew I could have got information out of him had I tried, Maximin might still…

  I checked the thought and focused back on the prefect. He was looking very pleased with himself. I declined another cup.

  He sighed. ‘I truly would like to help you. But unless you can show me those letters or tell me what was in them, I have nowhere to begin with an investigation.