The sill came up to my thighs. The window was recessed a foot or more into the wall, forming a sort of seat; the woman had thrown a thin pillow over it. I had to lean far over to see out. Because we overhung the ground-floor apartments, I could see nothing of the outer wall below, but across the way and a bit to the right I could look down onto the entrance of the little food shop; the old woman was busy sweeping the street in front, attacking the job with the same aggressiveness she had shown on the chopping block. Directly below, standing out vividly at this distance against the surrounding paving stones, was the large stain left by the blood of Sextus Roscius.
I patted the cushion. ‘It makes a nice seat, especially on a hot day like this, I imagine. It must be pleasant in the autumn as well, to sit here if the evening is warm enough. To watch the passersby. If you look up, you must be able to see the stars on a cloudless night.’
‘I keep the shutters closed after dark,’ she said, ‘no matter what the weather’s like. And I don’t pay attention to people in the street. I mind my own business.’
‘Your name is Polia, isn’t it?’
She shrank against the wall, tightening her grip on the boy and clumsily fondling his hair. He made a face and reached up, pushing at her arms in agitation. ‘I don’t know you. How do you know my name?’
‘Tell me, Polia, this wise policy of minding your own business – how far back does it go? Have you always followed it, or is it a recent resolution? Perhaps something you took up since, say, last September?’
‘I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’
‘When the watchman brought us up, you thought we might be someone else.’
‘I only asked if it was my mother. She keeps coming to me for money, and I don’t have any more to give her.’
‘No, I heard the exchange quite distinctly. He told you it was a citizen and a slave, and you said, “Not the ones who came before.” You sounded quite upset at the prospect of seeing them again.’
The boy’s fidgeting escalated into an outright struggle. She clutched him hard and slapped the top of his head. ‘Why don’t you just go away? Why don’t you leave us alone?’
‘Because a man has been murdered, and another man stands to die for it.’
‘What do I care?’ she snapped. Bitterness spoiled what was left of her beauty. ‘What crime had my husband committed when he died of the fever? What had he done to deserve death? Even the gods can’t answer that. The gods don’t care. Men die every day.’
‘This dead man was stabbed directly below your window last September. I think you saw it happen.’
‘No. How would I remember such a thing, anyway?’ The woman and her child seemed to be performing a strange, wriggling dance, struggling together in the corner. Polia was beginning to breathe harder. The boy never took his eyes off me.
‘It’s not something I’d think you would forget. Here, you can see the bloodstain if you glance out of the window. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’
Suddenly the boy broke free. I jerked back. Tiro moved to shield me, but there was no need. The boy burst into tears and ran headlong from the room.
‘There, you see what you’ve done? You made me mention his father. Just because Eco can’t speak, people forget he can hear as well as anyone. There was a time when he could speak, as well. But not since his father died. Not a word since then. The fever struck them both… . Now get out. I don’t have anything to say to you. Get out!’
She fumbled with the knife while she spoke, then suddenly seemed to notice what she held. She pointed it towards us, clutching it clumsily, her hand shaking, looking more likely to cut herself than to stab with it.
‘Come, Tiro,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing more for us here.’
The little watchman had refilled his wineskin and sat at the head of the stairs, squirting the juice between his red-stained lips. He mumbled something and held out his hand as we walked past. I ignored him. The ground-floor watchman was where we had first seen him, huddled at the far end of the hallway. He ignored us.
The street was inhumanly hot.
Tiro hung back, walking slowly down the steps and looking perplexed.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Why didn’t you offer her money? We know she saw the killing, the old man said so. Surely she could use the silver.’
‘There’s not enough money in my purse to make her talk. Couldn’t you see that? She’s a very frightened woman. I don’t think she would have taken the money anyway. She’s not accustomed to being poor, or at least poor enough to beg. Not yet, anyway. Who knows what her story is?’ I tried to harden my voice. ‘Who cares? Whatever it is, there are a thousand more widows in this city with the same stories, each one more pathetic than the last. All that matters to us is that someone silenced her long before we came. She’s of no use to us now.’
I almost expected Tiro to take me to task, but of course that would never happen. He was a slave, and very young, and could not see how badly I had mishandled the woman. I had treated her as crudely as I had the shopkeeper and the watchmen. She might have spoken if I had touched in her some key other than fear. I walked quickly, oblivious of the bloodstain as it passed under my feet, too angry to notice where I was headed. The noonday sun beat down like a fist on my neck. I ran headlong into the boy.
We both started back, breathless from the collision. I cursed. Eco made a harsh, stifled noise in his throat.
I had enough wits to cast a wary glance at his hands. They were empty. I looked in his eyes for an instant, then stepped aside to walk on. He grabbed the sleeve of my tunic. He shook his head and pointed to the window.
‘What do you want? We’ve left your mother in peace. You should go to her now.’
Eco shook his head and stamped his foot. He pointed again to the window. He gestured that we should wait, and ran inside.
‘What do you think he wants?’ said Tiro.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, but even as I spoke I sensed the truth, and felt a prickling of dread.
A moment later the boy reappeared, carrying a black cloak over one arm and concealing something in the folds of his tunic. He pulled out his hand, and the long blade glinted in the sunlight. Tiro gasped and grabbed my arm. I held him gently back, knowing the knife was not for us.
The boy walked slowly towards me. There was no one else in the street; the hour was too hot.
‘I think the boy wants to tell us something,’ I said.
Eco nodded.
‘About that night in September.’
He nodded again and pointed with his blade at the bloodstain.
‘About the death of the old man in the street. The murder happened an hour or two after darkness fell. Am I right?’
He nodded.
‘Then how could anyone have seen anything more than shadows?’
He pointed to the torch brackets fitted up and down the street, and then upward. His hands defined a sphere.
‘Ah, yes, it was the Ides – the moon was high that night, and full,’ I said. He nodded.
‘The killers, where did they come from?’
Eco pointed to the recessed space now covered by the door to the food shop.
‘Exactly as I thought. And how many of them were there?’
He held up three fingers.
‘Only three? You’re certain?’
He nodded vigorously. Then the pantomime began.
He ran a short way up the street, then turned around, prancing towards us with drooping eyes and a pompous stare. He gestured to either side with a flourish.
‘Old Sextus Roscius,’ I said. ‘And he comes attended by his two slaves, one on either side.’
The boy clapped his hands and nodded. He ran to the shop door, wedged his shoulder behind it and swung it shut. Through the wood, from her counter at the back, I heard the old woman curse. The boy swung the dark cloak over his shoulders and crouched against the wall in the little cul-de-sac clutching the long knife. I followed
him.
‘Three assassins, you said. And who are you now, the leader?’
He nodded, then motioned that I should take the place of old Sextus, strolling down the moonlit street.
‘Come, Tiro,’ I said, ‘You’ll be Felix, or Chrestus, or whichever slave stood on his master’s right hand, closest to the ambush.’
‘Do you think this is wise, sir?’
‘Be quiet, Tiro, and play along.’
We walked side by side down the street. Seeing it from the victim’s angle, the narrow dead-end passage loomed up without warning; at night, even beneath a full moon, it must have been an invisible hole of darkness. Looking straight ahead as we passed by, I saw nothing but the slightest flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, and by that time it was too late. The mute boy was behind us without warning, seizing Tiro by the shoulder and shoving him aside. He did it twice, once to the left, once to the right: two assassins pushing aside two slaves. The second time, Tiro shoved him back.
I began to turn, but Eco pushed at my shoulders, telling me to stay as I was. From behind he threaded his arms through mine as if to hold me immobile. With a pat on my arm he slipped away, into another role, and circled in front of me, pulling the cowl over his face, clutching the knife, walking with a limp. He reached up to seize my jaw with one hand and looked me square in the face. He raised the dagger and brought it down, slicing through empty air.
‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where was the first wound?’
He tapped a spot between my collarbone and nipple, just above the heart. I reached up and touched it without thinking. Eco nodded, his face invisible beneath the shadow of the cowl. He pointed to the handprint on the shop door.
‘Then Sextus must have struggled free—’
He shook his head and made a flinging motion.
‘He was thrown to the ground?’ A nod. ‘And somehow had the strength to crawl to the door—’
Eco shook his head again and pointed to where the old man had struck the ground. He walked up to the imaginary body and began kicking at it viciously, making weird noises from the back of his throat. Sneering, barking, and – I suddenly realized with a feeling of sickness – mimicking a laugh.
‘He was here then,’ I said, taking my place at the boy’s feet. ‘Shocked, bewildered, bleeding. They drove him forwards, kicking at him, cursing and ridiculing him, laughing. He reached up and touched the door… .’
For the second time that morning I was struck square in the nose as the door swung outward with a creak and a shudder.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ It was the woman. ‘You have no right—’
Eco saw her and froze. ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘never mind her. Go on. Sextus Roscius had fallen, he leaned against the door. What then?’
The boy came towards me, limping again, and made a motion of seizing my toga with both hands and literally tossing me into the middle of the street. He limped quickly to the prostrate phantom and resumed kicking at it, moving forwards a little with each step until he stood directly over the massive bloodstain. He indicated his phantom companions at either side.
‘Three,’ I said, ‘all three of the assassins surrounded him. But where were the two slaves, then? Dead?’ No. ‘Wounded?’ No. The boy made an obscene gesture of disgust and dismissal. The slaves had run. I glanced at Tiro, who looked profoundly disappointed.
Eco squatted over the bloodstain, took out his knife and raised it high over his head, then brought it down within a finger’s breadth of the street, over and over. He began to shake. He dropped forwards on his knees. He made a sound like a donkey quietly braying. He was weeping.
I knelt beside him and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. I only want you to remember a little more.’ He drew away from me and wiped his face, angry at himself for crying. ‘Only a little more. Was there anyone else who saw? Someone else in the tenement, or across the street?’
He glared at the shopkeeper’s wife, who stood staring at us from the entrance to her store. He raised his hand and pointed.
‘Ha!’ The woman crossed her arms and lowered her head, bull-like. ‘The boy’s a liar. Either that, or he’s blind as well as dumb.’
The boy pointed again, as if by hurling his finger at her he could make her confess. Then he pointed at a little window above the shop, where the old man’s face peered out at us for an instant before abruptly disappearing behind a pair of shutters closed from within.
‘A liar,’ the woman growled. ‘He should be beaten.’
‘You told me you lived at the back of the building, with no windows overlooking the street,’ I said.
‘Did I? Then it’s only the truth.’ She had no way of knowing I had seen her husband only an instant before, looming directly above her like the disembodied face of a deus ex machina in a play.
I turned back to Eco. ‘Three of them, you said. Was there anything to distinguish them besides their cloaks? Tall, short, anything unusual? One of them limped, you say, the leader. Which was his crippled leg, the left or the right?’
The boy thought for a moment, then poked at his left leg. He scrambled up and limped about me in a circle.
‘The left. You’re certain?’
‘Ridiculous!’ the old woman screamed. ‘The stupid boy knows nothing! It was his right leg that was bad, his right!’ The words were out before she could stop them. She slapped a hand over her mouth. A smile of triumph crept over my face, then withered as she gave me a look such as Medusa might have given Perseus. For a moment she stood confused, then she took decisive action. She stormed into the street and seized the handle of the wide door, then stamped back into the shop, pulling it closed behind her in a great arc while Tiro scurried out of her way. ‘We will reopen,’ she shouted to no one in particular, ‘when this rabble has cleared the streets!’ The door closed behind her not with a great boom, but with an equivocal rattle and a thud.
‘His left,’ I said, turning back to the boy. He nodded. A tear ran down his cheek; he dabbed at it angrily with his sleeve. ‘And his hand – which did he use for stabbing? Think!’
Eco seemed to stare into some great depth that loomed beneath the bloodstain at our feet. Slowly, trancelike, he transferred the blade from his right hand to his left. He narrowed his eyes. His left hand gave a jerk, making miniature stabbing motions in the air. He blinked and looked up at me, nodding.
‘Left-handed! Good, left-handed with a game left leg – that should make him easy enough to spot. And his face – did you have a look at his face?’
He shuddered and seemed to be holding back tears. He nodded slowly, gravely, not quite looking me in the eye.
‘A good look? Good enough so that you would recognize him if you were to see him again?’
He gave me a look of pure panic and began scrambling to his feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, close to the bloodstain. ‘But how could you have seen him so closely? Where were you, in the window of your room?’
He nodded. I glanced up.
‘Too far to get a really good look at a man’s face in the street even in broad daylight. And yet it was dark that night, even if there was a full moon.’
‘Fool! Don’t you understand?’ The voice came from above me, from the window over the shop. The old man had pulled back the shutters and was peering down at us again, talking in a hoarse whisper. ‘It wasn’t that night that he got a good look at the man’s face. They came back again, only a few days later.’
‘And how do you know that?’ I asked, craning my neck.
‘They … they came into my shop.’
‘And how did you recognize them? Did you see the crime?’
‘Not me. Oh, no, not me.’ The old man looked warily over his shoulder. ‘But there’s nothing that happens in this street day or night that my wife doesn’t see. She saw them that night, standing where I am at this very window. And she knew them when they came back a few days later in broad daylight, the same three – she knew their leader
by his limp, and one of the others by the size of him – a big blond giant with a red face. The third had a beard, I think, but I can’t say more than that. The leader was asking questions around the neighbourhood, same as you. Only we didn’t tell them a thing, not a thing, not one word about Polia claiming to have seen the stabbing herself from start to finish, I swear it. Didn’t like the look of them. At least I didn’t tell them anything; only it seems, now that I recall, I had to leave the shop, just for a moment, while the old woman got rid of them – you don’t suppose she went off with her big mouth …’
Behind me I heard a strange animal cry. I turned, then ducked as Eco’s knife went flying over my head. The old man’s reflexes were amazingly quick. The knife went whistling towards the open window and struck against slammed shutters instead. The blade landed squarely in the wood, stuck for a long moment, then slipped free and fell to the street with a clatter. I turned and stared at Eco, amazed that a mere boy could have thrown the knife with such strength. He stood hiding his face in his hands, weeping.
‘These people are mad,’ whispered Tiro.
I grabbed Eco’s wrists and pulled his hands from his face. He wrenched his head from side to side, trying to hide his tears. He pulled against my grip. I held him fast.
‘The men came back,’ I said. ‘They came for you. Could they have seen you watching, the night of the murder?’
He wildly shook his head.
‘No. Then they found out from the old woman in the shop. She led them to you. But according to the gossip it was your mother who saw the crime. Did she? Was she with you in the window?’
Again he shook his head. He wept.
‘You were the only one who saw it, then. You and the old woman across the street. But the old woman had the sense to keep herself out of it – and to lead them elsewhere. You told your mother all the details, didn’t you? Just as you’ve told us? And she started putting it out as if she’d seen the crime herself. Am I right?’
He shuddered and sobbed.
‘Wretched,’ I whispered. ‘Wretched. So they came that day looking for her, not you. And they found her in your apartment. You were there?’
Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) Page 12