“He sticks with what others had told me,” said Amicus. “Verovolcus was a nuisance to the gang, and Florius wanted to humiliate him—but putting him in the well was just a game. That barber said the same. But the bar owner actually saw what happened.”
“He denied that before.”
“Well, I loosened his tongue.”
“That’s your job. But under torture people say what they think you want to hear—” Amicus looked put out. “If he admits it was murder, he may be scared that we’ll charge him as an accessory.”
“He has been assured we won’t punish him for the truth. Oh, go and see the procurator, Falco!” Amicus burst out. “Ask him to show you the evidence. You won’t argue with that.”
I found Hilaris, who looked depressed. He confirmed that the bar owner had croaked out a clue, which had caused a new search to be made of his premises. Hilaris then unlocked a small paneled wall-cupboard. With two hands he removed an object, which he dropped on a table with a loud thump. I picked it up: a torque of truly regal weight. It was a wonderful snaky thing of interlinked thick gold wires that must have made its wearer’s neck ache. I wished I could ask my father’s advice, but it seemed to me to be of some age, maybe dating back to Caesar’s time. The techniques of weaving the wires and the granulated filigree that patterned the fastener were Mediterranean.
I sighed. “Tell me this was found among the loot we took from the gang, Gaius.”
“Afraid not. We found it hidden in a wattle-wall panel at the Shower of Gold.”
“And that’s why Amicus is trying out his best skills on the waitress?”
“He has done it. She won’t talk to him. The woman is being brought before the governor now, if you want to come.”
Flavia Fronta, as the informant now called herself, was dragged before a strict tribunal: Julius Frontinus, Flavius Hilaris, and me. We sat in a line on folding stools, the Roman symbol of authority. Where we went, our power to adjudicate went too. That did not mean we could persuade an intransigent waitress to talk.
There were some signs of damage on her, though I had seen women look far more battered. The soldiers who brought her in were holding her up, but when they stood her in front of the governor, she stayed upright stoically. She still had breath to complain loudly about her handling by Amicus.
“All you have to do is tell the truth,” Frontinus pronounced.
I thought she now looked like a liar who was losing her nerve.
“Let us go through your story,” said Hilaris. I had seen him in this situation before. For a quiet man, he had a terse and very effective interrogation style. “You are the only person—the only free citizen whose word counts legally—who claims that Pyro and Splice killed Verovolcus in the tavern well.”
Flavia Fronta nodded unhappily.
“You say you heard the Roman called Florius order them to do it?” Another, even weaker nod. “And when Florius left the bar with his two associates, the Briton was dead?”
“He must have been.”
“Oh, bull’s balls! That’s not good enough.” Everybody looked at me. I stood up slowly. I paced closer to the woman. I had noted the new weakness in the way she told her story. Amicus was not the only professional involved here. Even when it is inconvenient, a good informer continues to test everything. “Pyro told us Verovolcus was still alive.”
“You’d better ask Pyro about it then!” she jeered.
“Pyro is dead. The gang had him killed.” I lowered my voice: “Before you think it lets you off, you have something very serious to explain.”
I nodded to Hilaris. He produced the torque.
“Flavia Fronta, we believe you hid this at the bar.”
“It’s been planted!”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Now, as the governor told you, we are going to go through your story. You can tell us now, or you can be sent back to the official torturer—who, believe me, has not even started on you yet. Let’s begin: You say Florius told Pyro and Splice, Do it, lads! Then, you say, they shoved poor Verovolcus in the well. You described it; you told me his expression was horrible . . . You say Pyro and Splice held him down—but if they did that, how exactly were you able to see his expression?”
“Oh . . . it must have been while they were dunking him.”
“I see.” I pretended to accept it. The woman could tell I had not done so. “So he was there dead, and everybody fled in fear?”
“Yes. They all ran.”
“What did the three men do? Florius, Pyro, and Splice?”
“They left too.”
“Straightaway?”
“Yes.”
“Someone told us they were laughing?”
“Yes.”
“So behind them in the yard was Verovolcus in the well—where was the bar owner?”
“Inside the bar. Whenever there was trouble he found something else to do.”
“Well, that’s typical of a landlord, isn’t it? And what about you? You went out into the yard to have a look? Then, let me guess—you stood there staring at Verovolcus and—am I right?—you told us next morning that his feet were waggling?”
On his magistrate’s stool, Hilaris moved very slightly. He too remembered that the woman had mentioned this when we inspected the corpse.
Flavia Fronta made her mistake: she nodded.
I pierced her with a furious gaze. “And then you did—what?”
She faltered, unwilling to explain.
“You took his torque, didn’t you?” I knew now. “Pyro had not removed it, as people thought he must have done. You were alone with the Briton. He was half drowned and at your mercy. You could see this beautiful, very costly torque around his neck. It was too much to resist.”
Flavia Fronta nodded again. I cannot say she looked crestfallen. She was aggrieved that I had forced this out of her, and she seemed to believe that stealing the precious neck collar had been her right.
“Explain now how it happened. You must have pulled Verovolcus at least partially out of the well to get at it?”
“That’s right.” She was bolder now. We had the torque. Deception was pointless. Women are such realists.
“Verovolcus was still alive. He must have been heavy, and weakened perhaps. I daresay he was struggling. Pulling him out just enough must have taken some effort.”
“I may be short but I’m strong,” the waitress boasted. “I spend half my life shifting full barrels and amphorae. I dragged him up and hauled the torque off his neck.”
“He was still alive. You admit that?”
“He damn well was. He made a big fuss about me wrenching off his gold.”
I tried to moderate my distaste for her. “Verovolcus was meant to survive being dunked in the water. But you had stolen his torque and he saw you; so then—”
“I had no choice,” responded the waitress, as if I were an idiot to ask. “I shoved him down the well again. And I held him there until he stopped kicking.”
I turned to the governor and procurator. “Always a good feeling when you charge the right suspect with murder, don’t you think?” They looked rueful.
Flavia Fronta’s confession had destroyed our viable case against Florius. On murder we would have had him. Putting him before a jury on charges of racketeering would be messier, and with clever lawyers to confuse the issues, the outcome would be much more unpredictable.
“I suppose I should have hidden the torque better,” the woman groaned.
“No, you should never have taken it. King Togidubnus gave that torque as a present to his retainer. The King will be pleased to have it returned. But I don’t hold out much hope for your nice little wine shop in the south.”
The waitress would go to the arena. The death of an unrepentant murderess in the jaws of bears or big wild cats would be a huge draw for an audience. She did not seem to have realized her fate. I left it for the governor and his staff to bring that home to her.
To Petronius Longus I broke the bitter news that we had solved a
crime but lost his witness.
LX
There was one sad task remaining: Helena, Petronius, and I attended the funeral of Chloris. Maia, still shaky after her bout with Norbanus, refused to come with us. She had harsh words for all female fighters and worse for my old girlfriend. She even blamed Helena for attending.
“This is noble, Helena—but nobility stinks!”
“She died at my feet,” Helena Justina reproved her quietly.
Gladiators are outcasts from society. Their infamy means their graves lie not just beyond the town, as happens with all adult interments, but outside the public cemetery too. Established and wealthy groups of fighters may buy their own tombs, but Londinium so far possessed no townships of elaborate mausoleums for the dead. So her friends chose to bury Chloris in open ground, with an antique and peculiarly northern ritual.
It was a familiar walk to the site. We went westward along the Decumanus Maximus, crossing the central stream and then out past the arena and the bathhouse. Londinium had no walls and no formally plowed pomerium to mark its boundary, but we knew we were at the town limits. Beyond the military area, we reached a cemetery, one that contained some grand memorials. We walked through it, noticing a massive inscription, set up by his wife, to Julius Classicianus, the previous procurator of finance, from whom Hilaris had taken over after he died in service. Up and over the hill, we came to sloping ground that looked out across another tributary of the Thamesis. There, separate from the official tombs and monuments and facing the empty countryside, the funeral party met.
Chloris was the founder and leader of her group, cut down in unfair combat. It called for particular honor. Her body was brought at daybreak, the bier carried slowly by women. Her companions formed a somber ceremonial escort. Other mourners, mainly women also, had come from all parts of town. They included a priestess of Isis, to whose cult many gladiators are attached. There was a temple of the Egyptian goddess on the south bank of the river in Londinium, incongruously. I knew Chloris had barely honored her own Tripolitanian gods, but some of her companions found the attendance of the priestess appropriate. Anubis, the dog-headed Egyptian guide to the Underworld, equates to Rhadamanthus or Mercury, those messengers of the gods who officiate over deaths in the arena. So it was in a heavy fug of pine incense, and accompanied by the rattle of a sistrum, that the bier reached the burial site.
Outside the perimeter of the cemetery we found a carefully dug, straight-sided grave pit. Above this had been constructed an elaborate pyre of crossed logs, built up in rectangles. The timbers were meticulously laid. They would burn hot and they would burn long.
Deep in the pit were placed new lamps and incense burners, symbols of light and ritual. There were a few personal treasures and gifts from her friends too. Someone had washed Helena’s blue stole and Chloris lay upon it. If Helena noticed, she gave no sign of approval or otherwise.
Chloris looked older than I wanted to remember her. A fit woman in the prime of life who had chosen a harsh but spectacular career. However desperate it seemed, she might have hoped to win her fights and be acclaimed, with wealth and fame. Instead, she had been cut down for her independent spirit. Today she had been carefully robed, her ghastly wounds concealed. She wore a long dark gown, crossed on the breast with a costly gold body chain, bejeweled at its center. Even in death, she looked expensive, honed, sexually dangerous, troubling. I had not wished her dead, yet I was half relieved to be leaving her here.
“Who bought her the jewel?” I wondered.
“Nobody.” Helena glanced at me. “She will have bought it for herself. Don’t you see, Marcus—that was the point for her?”
As the flames were lit, her colleagues stood around her, beautiful and disciplined. Some wept, but most were still and grim. They knew they all faced death in the life they had chosen. Yet this death had been untimely; it demanded a special requiem. Heraclea, statuesque and blonde, took the torch first and fired a corner of the pyre. The sweet, aromatic scent of pine cones intensified. A thin trail of smoke curled upward, then the flames began to take. She handed on the torch. One by one the women touched the logs, circling the pyre. A low moan filled the air. Brief farewells were spoken. Even Helena moved away from Petronius and me and took her turn with the brand. He and I did not. It would have been unwelcome. We just stood with the smoke gusting around us, winding its way into our lungs, our hair, and our clothes.
The flames would burn all day and night. Slowly the layers of logs would fragment and sink into one another. At the end, the charred remains would fall into the pit, flesh melted, bones burned to fragility yet virtually intact. No one would collect the ashes and bones. This would be her perpetual resting place.
Eventually I went forward alone to say my farewells. After a while, the woman called Heraclea attended me like a hostess.
“Thank you for coming, Falco.”
I did not want to talk but politeness forced it. “This is a sad day. What will happen to your group now?”
Lowering her voice, Heraclea nodded to the priestess of Isis. “See her with the priestess?” There was a richly clad young matron alongside, one of those holy hangers-on whom temples attract, all dangling silver jewelry. “New patron. There were always several on the sidelines, widows or wealthy wives of merchants. They want the thrill of the blood, but if they sponsor us they can avoid being thought to lust after men. Amazonia said—”
I guessed. “Accepting their support would be no different from taking on Florius.”
“You knew her well.”
“Yes, I knew her.” I stared at the pyre. “I knew her, but it was a long time ago.”
Heraclea was also subdued. “Amazonia was right. I’m giving up on Britain. I’m going home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Halicarnassus.”
“Well, that’s the right place!” Halicarnassus is the spiritual homeland of the Amazons in myth. I glanced behind. Helena was talking to Petronius. From the stark expression on his face, this funeral was affecting him. He was thinking too much about that other in Ostia, when his two daughters were sent to the gods in his absence. Helena would comfort him. It would take her concentration off me for a moment. I took a chance. “Heraclea, did Chloris say anything about me?”
The tall blonde turned and gazed at me for a moment. I don’t know what I was hoping to hear, but she could not or would not supply it. “No, Falco. No. She never said anything.”
So that was it. I left her amid the sweet scent of burning pine cones and the avid flames.
Sometimes in the ensuing years I would remember her, trying not to dwell too much on the times we had spent together. I could cope with the memory.
“You were always trouble.”
“And you were always—”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you next time we’re alone . . .”
I returned to Petronius and Helena. They seemed to be waiting, as if they thought I had had something to finish.
We would not stay to the end, but for some time longer stood watching the flames in silence. The evil that had caused the death we mourned had been averted, at least temporarily. Londinium would fall prey to worse gangsters eventually, and for Petronius the task of hunting Florius remained. This woman who had died and her friends, whose grieving faces were lit by the fire, were outcasts—just like the criminals; they, however, stood for skill, talent, comradeship, and good faith. They represented the best of those who came here to the end of the world in hope. Chloris had been destroyed, yet it was on her own ground, using her skills, defiant, admired, and, I thought, holding no regrets.
Who could say that was uncivilized? It depends what you mean by civilization, as the procurator said.
Archaeological Note
When I decided to bring Falco and Helena to Roman London, it was partly because they were already in Britain after their previous adventure, and the problems of ancient world travel would not permit them to return too soon. This timing was good, however. The
re have been spectacular finds in recent years, greatly improving our knowledge of the Roman town. Sometimes it has seemed that the Museum of London Archaeology Service and the museum’s exhibition curators have been working flat out to find background material for a Falco plot. I am grateful particularly to Nick Bateman and Jenny Hall for their help, especially where dates and building locations are uncertain.
But my portrait of Londinium is personal. Fiction authors are allowed to invent. (Yes we are!) So, the wine-cask well is inspired by one found near the Decumanus, which featured in the exhibition High Street, Londinium, but mine is in a different location. The Shower of Gold, and all the other bars named in this story, are my creations.
Likewise, the burial in the final chapter is not the “bustum” burial in Southwark that caused much media excitement as the possible discovery of a female gladiator (a conclusion that is probably wrong); my burial takes place at the known Roman cemetery around Warwick Square, the area where the famous monument to Julius Classicianus may originally have stood before its stones were reused near the Tower. Had my lass existed, she would lie under the Central Criminal Courts (the Old Bailey). Don’t expect her to be found!
The stone-built Roman fort by the Barbican dates to the A.D. 80s. Evidence for earlier defenses with turf ramparts, perhaps hastily thrown up in the aftermath of the Boudiccan Rebellion, has been found at Fenchurch Street, but it seems most likely that at this date the soldiery occupied the western hill in a haphazard way (waiting perhaps for some government agent to suggest building them a decent fort . . . ). The amphitheater, identified only recently, is under Guildhall Yard. There was a military-style baths nearby in Cheapside, and Myron’s waterworks were recently discovered on a corner of Gresham Street.
The forum lay above what is now Gracechurch Street, north of Lombard Street. The Decumanus Maximus ran across town there, following the modern Cheapside and Newgate Street. Another major road lay under Cannon Street, and the road from the forum to the river was aligned with Fish Street Hill.
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