The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 2 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

“Sir –,” Spiro looked at the girl’s terrified face. If she’s acting, she could make a fortune on stage in Londinium. “What is she trying to say?”

  “I’m telling you he had the guards killed –”

  “Of course I did,” Draccus snapped. “For sleeping on duty after they let her in.”

  “But, sir,” Spiro said hesitantly “the guards wouldn’t have let her in. Not only because it was against orders but also because, for all they knew, she might have been a decoy to get the gate open and let in a horde of barbarians.” He turned to Gerda. “Who let you into the Principia?”

  She hesitated.

  Then pointed silently at Centurion Draccus.

  “Me?” Draccus laughed. “Why not the Prefect? She’s mad.”

  Spiro said, “Why did you come here tonight?”

  “To spend the night with him. He is – was – my lover.” She turned to Draccus. “Can you deny it?”

  Spiro looked at him and said slowly, “My God! It’s true! She came straight to this barrack block. Your quarters were the only ones she knew.” To Gerda. “But if you love him why are you telling me this?”

  “Love him? An old man?” she said contemptuously. “I hate all Romans! I want gold and my freedom, that is all.”

  “So he told you to wear the wig and bring drugged wine. He did somewhere after the gate was closed.” Spiro could hardly believe what he was saying. “Then he let you in to drug the guards. But why did he need you when he could easily have dealt with the guards himself?”

  “Not without a fight,” she said, “in which one of them could have got to the alarm.”

  “Of course. So, when they were well away, you and he raised the slab. It was then that the signifer arrived, wasn’t it? He’d found the gate open and wanted to know why. When he saw the Centurion helping himself to the money he jumped at the alarm cord. He”, pointing to Draccus, “hit him with the bag of copper coin he had in his hand.” He turned to the impassive Centurion, who was tapping his left hand with the dagger blade. “But what was it all for? You couldn’t take the gold to Rome.”

  “He wasn’t going to Rome,” the girl said. “He planned to desert with me and the gold when the Legion left. I was to take him to my people, the Saxones, when they arrived.” She smiled thinly. “I had been the wife of a chief. They would obey me when I told them to cut his throat. Then the gold would have been mine.”

  There was a silence until Draccus said grimly, “You treacherous whore! You have just committed suicide. And you, Spiro, you’ve been too clever for your own good.” He stood up, the dagger in his hand.

  Spiro said, backing to the door, “Why did you recommend me to the Prefect?”

  “Because I thought you were a stupid Briton who’d be bound to fail. And don’t try the door.” He took the dagger by the point. “I can throw this before you lift the –.”

  There was a shrill cry from outside. “Sound the alarm! The barbarians are attacking! Sound the alarm!” The girl darted into Draccus’s bedchamber and slammed the door. A moment later the alarm bell began to toll. In a bedlam of shouts and orders the legionaries poured from the barracks.

  The Centurion stood, indecisive. Spiro picked up a stool by the legs. Facing Draccus, he felt behind him and lifted the latch. The Centurion’s arm went back. The dagger hissed through the air. Spiro raised the stool. The blade struck the seat with a clunk. Spiro pulled it out and stood like a gladiator, knife in one hand, stool like a shield in the other.

  Draccus kicked open the door of his bedroom, went in. There was a scream, cut off abruptly. He came out, his two-edged short sword dripping blood. “Now. Spiro!” He dropped into a crouch. “Do you know how many men I’ve killed?” He circled, trying for an opening, grinning. “Let’s see if you can be the first man in the centuria to defeat me.”

  He straightened up as, behind Spiro, the door flew open. Quinctilius Fabius Cornelius Silvanus, Praefectus of the 3rd. Cohort, strode in, wearing a hastily folded toga, his sparse hair rumpled. Behind him were two legionaries. And, to Spiro’s amazement . . . Gwynedd.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Clearly, the Prefect did not appreciate being awakened abruptly in the middle of the night. “Put down your weapons!”

  Draccus put down his bloodstained sword and saluted. “Sir, this legionary has just confessed to the murder of the signifer, Marcus Sextus Curtius –.”

  “That’s a lie!” Gwynedd snapped. “My husband, Silanus Gaius Escobinius, has revealed that Centurion Draccus is the murderer –.”

  “And also the killer of a slave girl whose corpse is in the next room,” Spiro added. “At least, I think she’s dead.”

  One of the soldiers strode into the bedchamber. He nodded as he came out. “Couldn’t be more dead, sir. Been beheaded.”

  “You killed her, Centurion? Why?”

  “She was in league with Escobinius, sir,” Draccus said. “They both attacked me.”

  “More lies,” Gwynedd said scornfully. “I heard what happened. I was outside the window.”

  Draccus grinned. “Sir, she’s bound to support her husband, isn’t she? He hid in the Principia and let the slave girl in. She drugged the guards. While they were robbing the treasure-chest, the signifer appeared so they killed him.”

  The Prefect said to Spiro, “Can you disprove that?”

  “Of course he can’t. It’s his word against mine.” Draccus stared contemptuously at Spiro. “And whose word is of greater worth, sir? That of a Roman officer or a British legionary?”

  “True.” The Prefect turned to the guards. “Take this man –.”

  “One moment, sir, please!” Spiro was gambling for his life. “I know where the gold is!”

  “You confess?” The Prefect asked. “You hid the gold?”

  “No, sir. Centurion Draccus did.”

  “Where?”

  Spiro prayed that he was right. He walked across the room. He stamped his foot on the place where he had felt wooden boards under the matting. “Here, sir,” he said.

  The Prefect and the soldiers followed him. The Prefect pointed. One of them drew his sword and slashed. The matting split apart. The soldier lifted one of the boards.

  Beneath was a pile of small jute sacks.

  The Prefect swung round. “Centurion, how can you explain this?”

  Draccus said nothing. He picked up his sword, presented the point to his chest and fell. He uttered a groan, his legs kicked, then he went still.

  On the morning after next, Spiro and Gwynedd stood on the wharf watching the ships’ sails filling with the stiff northwesterly breeze. “I can’t believe that they’ve all gone,” he said. “Marcellus, all my mates in the 2nd centuria, the trumpeter – even Roscius the Rat. Gone, never to return. It’s going to be a different world, sweetheart.”

  “I know. It doesn’t seem possible. No pax Romana – no Roman peace. No Roman law. No more fine roads. And after how many years?”

  “I dunno. Few hundred, I suppose. And now we’re on our own.” The transports were hull-down now, their sails white against the overcast. Spiro raised an arm. “Hail and farewell, comrades,” he said, a choke in his voice.

  He turned and walked slowly back to the fortress camp of Rutupiae, his arm round his wife’s shoulders. “The child,” he said. “You’re sure it’s to be a boy?”

  “Certain sure. And he is to be a great king.”

  “Is that so? And what are we going to call him, this king?”

  She looked up at Spiro, smiling. “Arthur,” she said.

  _________

  * In its prime, a Roman legion consisted of ten cohorts, each commanded by a prefect (praefectus). A cohort was made up of six centuriae each under a centurion. However, by the beginning of the fifth century, at which time this story is set, the Army, like everything else Roman, was in a state of flux and its organization varied considerably.

  And All That He Calls Family

  Mary Reed and Eric Mayer

  The first volume of The Mammoth Bo
ok of Historical Whodunnits introduced the character of John the Eunuch in “A Byzantine Mystery”. Since then I have published other investigations of his, “A Mithraic Mystery” in The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives and “Beauty More Stealthy” in Classical Whodunnits, and he has also featured in two novels to date: One for Sorrow (1999) and Two for Joy (2000). The stories are set during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian (AD 527–65). Mary Reed and Eric Mayer are a husband-and-wife writing team who, when they are not writing about John the Eunuch have produced another series featuring the Mongolian Police Inspector Dorj.

  “It was a difficult pregnancy and a harrowing birth. Anthea is fortunate indeed to have survived.” Hypatia dropped another handful of figs into the pot steaming on the kitchen brazier. “If only Damian had lived long enough to see his son!”

  “The late master will meet Solon much too soon if the child remains so sickly.” Helen had forsaken her culinary duties to slump in exhaustion on a low stool at the kitchen table. The plump cook had served in Damian’s household for many years, having arrived long before Anthea was purchased to attend the old mistress, and even longer before Hypatia had laboured briefly in the estate gardens. “Your employer was most kind, allowing you to stay with us this past week or so,” she concluded.

  “The Lord Chamberlain knew Damian well,” Hypatia smiled. “And he wished me to assist as much as possible.”

  “Without your aid and Rhea’s potions, of course, I don’t know how we would have managed,” Helen sighed.

  Hypatia, knowledgeable in herbal matters, remarked that she was impressed that a woman of such obvious learning as Rhea would be content to live in the nearby village.

  “But you’ve worked much harder than anyone, Helen,” she went on, vigorously stirring the syrup. “Making nourishing meals to tempt an expectant mother’s appetite is penance enough, but when she’s ill besides it’s even harder to please. And all the cooking to be done in this terrible heat besides.”

  The kitchen window stood wide open but afforded no relief from the oppressive weather that had clung, honey-like, to the countryside for the past two months. The aroma from the fig syrup boiling on the brazier hung cloyingly in the air, with no breeze to stir it into the wilting herb garden, whose riot of spindly coriander and coltsfoot, dill, thyme and oregano were coated with a fine layer of dust.

  Helen pushed a straying strand of white hair away from her scarlet, perspiring face. “Yet if the mistress had spent the last few weeks in the city, it would have been even more of an ordeal. I’ve rarely seen a woman be so ill and yet not lose her child.”

  “When I left Constantinople there was some talk of the cisterns getting low,” Hypatia remarked. “But I suppose it was more a case of Anthea wanting to get away from all the clamour and dirt.”

  “Ah, well, you might think so,” The cook pitched her voice lower, looking around as if to ensure no one lurked at door or window to overhear her indiscreet tattle. “But the truth is that the mistress wished to be near her husband when she gave birth.”

  Hypatia’s dark eyes conveyed her surprise at the statement. Damian had died some months before Anthea had borne his son. “Pregnant women often get odd fancies, and not just about their food,” she finally ventured.

  “Indeed they do. Although I must say that I would not have buried my husband practically under my bedroom window. His parents were not interred here, why isn’t he with them?”

  Before Hypatia could respond, a shriek broke the heavy stillness of the garden.

  Helen paled and half rose from her seat as Hypatia looked hastily out. A man she recognized as Jason, one of the house servants, was racing across the herb garden, heedless of the heat and the drought-stricken plants he was trampling underfoot.

  He burst into the stifling kitchen. “Look what I just dredged up out the well,” he shouted.

  Helen gave a cry of disgust as she saw what he threw down on the table. It was a small, dark roll of metal, dripping wet.

  A curse tablet.

  John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, sang softly to the infant he was awkwardly holding. Having accomplished this unaccustomed task, he thankfully handed the child back to the woman sitting on the couch opposite him.

  “It is as well Solon does not understand Greek yet,” Anthea smiled wanly. “I am not certain that your military song was fit for the ears of a child of such a tender age!”

  “I am ignorant of such things,” John admitted with a smile, “but despite its sentiments the song seemed a fitting lullaby for a sturdy son, especially one carrying such a weighty name.”

  Anthea bit her lip, obviously distressed. Despite John’s courtesy, it was clear that Solon was anything but sturdy. The infant was thin and fretful, his skin sallow.

  His mother, round-faced and pale, was dressed in white silk robes, her fair hair confined by a pearled net. She was softly pretty, John thought. Had that been enough reason for Damian to choose her – a slave – for his wife?

  John recalled the earnest but bewildered young aristocrat who had often sought his advice, most recently a week or two before his untimely death. Newly appointed to oversee the planning for one or another of Justinian’s endless city improvement projects, Damian had somehow contrived to run afoul of a high legal personage in the quaestor’s office. John would have been able to help him, had there been more time. Now, the best he could do was assist the man’s family.

  “Hypatia has been of great assistance to me,” Anthea was saying. “I’ve enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with her, brief though our original friendship was. Our respective circumstances have certainly changed greatly since we first met. But to get to the matter in hand, tell me, Lord Chamberlain, what are your thoughts concerning this disgusting tablet?”

  “I’ve heard of them being buried by the superstitious in the Hippodrome years ago,” John told her. “Apparently it was believed they would thereby influence the racing, although personally I suspect that the necessary bribes to gain access to the track in order to conceal them at the turning post would far outweigh any possible winnings. But this is the first time I’ve seen one on a private estate.” He paused tactfully. “I’ve taken it into my charge.”

  “Feel free to question everyone, of course. The sooner this is resolved, the better.”

  “Do any of the servants understand Latin?”

  She looked perplexed. “No, just Greek. The only people in this household with any knowledge of Latin are myself – my late husband provided instruction – and my brother-in-law Burrhus. Why do you ask?”

  “Because the curse is inscribed in Latin,” John explained, “and these tablets are usually written in Greek. It is the custom.”

  Burrhus was outraged by John’s questioning.

  “Of course I know Latin,” he said icily. “I’m an advocate. Do you then plan to accuse me of causing my brother’s death as well as my nephew’s illness?”

  He was a big man, verging on corpulent. Sweating from the sticky heat, he had pushed up the sleeves of his heavy dalmatic to reveal brawny arms resembling those of a baker’s assistant. John had found Burrhus in his wing of the rambling villa, sitting in the humid shade of a peristyle surrounding a courtyard displaying a number of desiccated shrubs.

  “I’m not accusing anyone of any crime, let alone murder,” John replied sharply. “Damian died of a fever in Constantinople, far from this curse tablet about which your sister-in-law is so concerned.”

  “As if a thin piece of lead inscribed with some wordy nonsense could harm anybody,” Burrhus said impatiently. “Now if it had been a proclamation from the emperor, that would be different.” He gave an unpleasant laugh.

  “You and Anthea are on friendly terms?” John enquired.

  Burrhus gave him the sort of appraising look he would have levelled at a legal opponent in court. “What makes you ask such a question?”

  John shrugged. “It’s natural enough. After all, you are sharing an estate with her.”
>
  The other man sighed. “Do not deduce too much from the domestic arrangements, Lord Chamberlain. Naturally I shall strive to do my duty towards my deceased brother, which is to say I will continue to do my best in the interests of his son and, of course, his son’s mother, despite the irregularity of their union.”

  John said he understood that, under the law, a free born man may marry a freed woman.

  “Unless he is a senator or the child of a senator,” the other confirmed. “But as the esteemed Modestinus put it, in marriage, in addition to that which is legally permissible what must also always be considered is that which men call decent. I fear, given the state of the law today, his sentiment is mere philosophy, for it’s my opinion that although a slave may be manumitted and tutored and clothed in fine silks, yet still she remains a slave.”

  John gave a thin smile.

  “Everyone at court knows your history, Lord Chamberlain,” Burrhus continued, unabashed. “You too were once a slave. But your circumstances are different, for if a man is free born he does not lose ingenuus, as the law terms it, if he was forced into slavery. And you, I dare say, do not believe, as slaves do, in foolishness such as this tablet.”

  “No,” John admitted, “but I do believe that whoever is responsible for it may decide to take more direct action to accomplish what a mere curse cannot.”

  “But what can we do? Dismiss all the servants? And there are other possibilities to consider. A business rival might have bribed one of the estate workers to drop the wretched thing into the well, for example.”

  John asked Burrhus if he could think of anyone who harboured resentment against the family.

  “I have no reason to suspect anyone,” the other replied. “And Anthea was already ill when she arrived here from Constantinople. I personally employed the village herbalist, Rhea, to treat her.” He halted abruptly, as if suddenly aware that what he had said might provide a weapon to be wielded against him.

  “Rhea is most dependable, Lord Chamberlain,” he went on hastily. “She was employed for some years by a legal colleague of mine before retiring to the countryside. She’s cared for our family and many others hereabouts ever since then, and there’s never been so much as a hint of anyone bringing an injuria against her for any reason whatsoever.”