by Ben Pastor
Decimus coldly lifted his eyes from the brick. "And what, if I may ask, were you doing there?"
"Paying my respects to his widow."
"That old biddy. Why?"
"Isn't it generally done, among civilized people?"
"Yes, but you never even met Marcellus, and his murder is hardly your concern. Unless you want to count the fact that you broke up the riot at the prisons and went uninvited to the crime scene." Decimus swept the air with a bored, dismissing wave. "Collect bricks for all I care, see what you can learn from them. Before fantasy runs away with you because I sold construction material to the judge, you should also know that it was my brickworks that won the horse barracks contract when Pennatus lost it."
"I knew that already. And also the contract for the works near the Old Baths. Along with rocks and clumps of dirt, it was your bricks that were hurled at us during the riot."
"So. We're back to your being either stupid or a tad too clever, Spartianus. There's something about you that goes beyond a historian's snoopiness."
Aelius stared at the brick. He wasn't sure why he had brought it along, much less shown it as if it were a proof of some kind. Noticing Decimus's mark on the construction material near the Old Baths, and then in Lucia Catula's garden, he'd limited himself to making a mental note of it. Still, he'd asked the head mason for one of the bricks at the villa. Only later had he learned that Decimus was the proprietor of the brickyard south of Modicia. Pennatus had deepened his interest, spitefully speaking of conservative circles and their dislike of Judge Marcellus.
But it was hardly enough, simply because his host did not mourn the judge, and had described Castas late husband as a conservative, a man after his own heart. Now Aelius was even more confused. He could only hope that the urbane aristocrat would take his move as idle woolgathering about the crime.
In fact, "I do think you're stupid," Decimus said, with the appeased air of one who has solved a lesser problem. "Put away your brick, it will lead you nowhere. As far as the Christians are concerned—strike them hard, I say! If the sender of the murderer is among them, justice is done; if not, it will keep the abominable sect from committing aberrations later. Believe me, if the Public Thing"—in conversation, Aelius had noticed he referred to the government in those terms, as res publica —"had from the beginning exerted its rightful authority over those scoundrels, we would not have come to the point that our cities are rife with Christians. In three centuries they have spread like oil in a hot pan: If you move the handle, oil runs to coat the whole bottom of it. Thank goodness there are still the peasants in the countryside who stick to traditional beliefs. It is a sad state of things that we have to depend on boors as champions of right-mindedness, the bona mens that made Romans who they are." Decimus poured more wine into the delicate silver bowls, at least as antique as the Teutoburg helmet. "Were you aware that in the mountains northeast of here Christian clerics and other such interlopers are fair game, and the moment one of them shows his sorry face in the village, he risks being lynched? I have seen a couple of them hanging from the trees myself, while going to see some property I own north of Leucum."
Aelius put away the brick. The act seemed silly to him now; he was surprised Decimus seemed to have been put in a better mood by his faux pas. Was he not, after all, the officer Maximian used to find out about visitors? He'd played into his hand easily enough. There was no putting a patch on things, so Aelius might as well try to play stupid to the end. "We don't know what the new judge will decide," he said, "but isn't it true that a hasty sentence may cloud the waters? If Our Lord Maximian had wished for more severe legal action against the Christians, he could have removed Minucius Marcellus at any time. And if the sole result of a mild judge's removal is a recrudescence of the prosecution, I fail to see how the Christians will gain from this murder."
Decimus made once more that waving gesture, back and forth. "Cui prodest —the great question. As if an assassin always had to have his own benefit in mind. Even in money-grabbing Mediolanum, someone may be placing higher things before his advantage. Maybe Marcellus's own bonhomie caused his fall. You know they have an apocalyptic literature, these Christians, whereby the end of the world is advocated: They might seek to hasten their own destruction."
"So, someone murdered Marcellus for a higher cause: but which one? They say he was not involved in politics and shook it off himself like a duck does with water. On the other hand, this religious prosecution is all about politics, you know better than I. Rome has never been intolerant of foreign cults, and Christianity isn't the first antisocial sect to penetrate our borders. But it is admittedly the most pernicious and resistant. I say that whoever killed the judge for a 'higher principle' did it for a political motive unknown to us."
"It may be. Whoever it is did us all a favor."
There was gratuitous cruelty in Decimus's words and a contemptuous, mean edge in his tone that made Aelius forget his good intentions and his tact. The last question he planned to ask—the question he had specifically decided not to ask—slipped out of him
"Yes. How do conservative circles feel about Marcellus's death?" Decimus pressed his lips tight. Not a clamping of the mouth this time but its disappearance into a slit. Unlikely dimples formed in those hollow cheeks. He seemed annoyed, or to be pretending annoyance, as if the question were impertinent or should seem so. When he spoke again, his words came out flattened, ironed by the tightening of lips.
"I don't know what time you rise in the morning, Spartianus, but I am an early bird. I will bid you good night, and retire."
6 December, Wednesday
On the matter of Christian responsibility, superficially obvious, Aelius chose to suspend judgment for now, but three days from the murder, the city as a whole seemed to think like Curius Decimus. Indeed, any serious investigation was immediately vitiated by the fact that Marcellus's auxiliary judge, overjoyed at seeing his way to promotion unexpectedly cleared, felt the need to show himself quick and fierce in prosecution. All the Christian clergy and laymen awaiting judgment in the city prisons were tried en masse in those three days, and all of them condemned to death.
It was not unheard of, but in contrast with the mildness of previous proceedings, the sentence affected Mediolanum in an odd, sated way. Booksellers said it was a good thing, if lacking in procedural elegance; officers at the cavalry barracks drank to the new judge's health, but through the side of their mouths whispered that the days of having to pay bribes were back. Archivists sniffled, took this or that document down from the shelf, and observed that hasty trials made for less paperwork. Decimus exulted, to the limit of good taste for a man of his style and measure.
As for Marcellus, his body was cremated at the family ustrinum, and the ashes laid in the Minucii monument on the road to Ticinum. Lucia Catula took care of all details, from the inditing of gladiatorial games in her husband's memory to the distribution of charity to orphan girls. She freed the house slaves according to Marcellus's will, sent thank-you notes to those who had attended the funeral, and amiably consoled the judge's friends. By midday on Monday, she was dead by her own hand.
Aelius learned the news on Wednesday morning, from a junior officer who came early to the barracks and climbed to his tower room to knock. One of the Palace Guards manning the inner halls of Max-imian's residence, he introduced himself as Ulpius Domninus, a friend of Decimus's. "Chamberlain Aristophanes requires your presence at court, Commander."
"At what time?" Up already, and about to leave his small quarters, Aelius stood with the messenger on the wooden balcony, buckling his belt. It was unconscionably early in the day, especially by bureaucratic standards, so the answer came as a surprise.
"On the double. I will wait for you below, and accompany you myself."
Aelius watched Domninus speedily go down the stairs. The summons gave him pause, a reaction just below a sense of alarm. He breathed in slowly, slowly exhaled, taking in the view as if to set himself solidly within place and time. Overn
ight, the norther had brought clear weather and a hard frost. On the barracks grounds, stable attendants broke the layer of ice in the watering troughs; troops assembling for roll call let out rhythmic puffs of condensed breath. Roofs on the covered passages would not begin steaming until the sun gained strength, but already the camp cats followed with tails straight up the soldier carrying out kitchen scraps; they, too, had a small trough laid out for their food, and Aelius watched them scratch and tumble to establish their eating order. From the tower, the mountains had the speckled blue color of lapis lazuli Aelius had seen in Persian markets, after the war.
Below, "I took the liberty of picking up your mail," Domninus said in a colorless voice, handing him two rolled and sealed letters. "Your mount is ready at the camp gate."
Aelius caught a glimpse of Duco, who looked out of the mail room and made an obscene gesture behind the messenger's back. It might be out of personal antipathy, but more likely it meant that he'd been forced to give up the letters, whose distribution was under his care today.
Not a good sign. The eunuch Aristophanes, Greek as the playwright whose name he bore, but (according to Decimus) possessing none of his humor, had the second-highest power in Mediolanum, whatever else hierarchy disposed. A belated decision by Maximian to receive His Divinity's envoy would unlikely require such haste, so it had to be something originating in a chamberlain's office, where all intrigue traditionally thrives.
Domninus, sporting a full beard, but only in that sense out of fashion, led the way to the camp gate in a uniform weighed down by embroidered purple strips. That he did not wear the fussy fringed cape of his rank might mean that he, too, had been thrown out of bed to run this errand. As soon as they were mounted, Aelius placed the letters in his saddlebag, and although one came from Thermuthis and the other from ben Matthias, he would not give Domninus the satisfaction of seeing him rush to read them.
In fact, he asked no questions as they rode the half-empty cold streets. It was when they crossed the avenue leading to Porta Ticinensis—the avenue Aelius's Guardsmen had devoured to charge the rioters—that Lucia Catula's death was brought up. Making a diversion and taking the long way to avoid the Jewish quarter, Domninus pointed vaguely in the direction of the Minucii's suburban estate and reported that hours earlier the old lady had cut her wrists on her wedding bed, wearing her wedding-day jewels. "Never in fifty-two years have we been apart for more than three days, she left written. We will not be apart for more than three days now. Nobody does that anymore. Pure class act. I wept when I heard."
"Sad news for the Minucii."
"Yes, especially since her soft little husband hardly deserved the sacrifice."
If further inquiry was expected, Aelius refrained from making it. He slipped the comment among the things worth recalling, and with his heels touched the horse's sides to ride a couple of steps ahead of his colleague. Kind Aelius Spartianus, Lucia Catula had told him Sunday, by way of a dismissal, as far as I am concerned, the punishment of death ordered after a death is only more death, even when it strikes the guilty. I will not attend any trials regarding our tragedy. We met briefly, you and I, but it moves me that — having no obligation to do so, not having known in person my beloved Marcellus — you brought your respects, and your disquiet for an assassination that seems without a reason. You asked me then whether I had a "theory" of my own, and I answered no. I still say no, but sometimes we search afar for something which is very near. She had quietly closed the door on him then, preventing explanations.
A click of the tongue, and Domninus overtook Aelius's mount and looked back over his shoulder. His hairy face, pale with the cold of the hour, was framed by the outer bastions of the Palace as if by a cascade of interlocking bricks. "The chamberlain wishes to be addressed as Eminence. Make sure you do."
"He's equestrian rank, is he not? Isn't perfectissimus the appropriate title?"
"You'll call 'most perfect' the chief speculator, Spartianus. The chamberlain goes by Eminence."
So, the head of criminal investigation would attend the meeting. Why? Without a particular reason, it set Aelius's teeth on edge.
"Credentials, credentials."
The Greek singsong accent was no doubt something the chamberlain affected, as administrators were perfectly schooled in Latin. He received in an office at the end of a long corridor paved and wainscoted in black marble, mirror-shiny like the hall Emperor Domitian had constructed in the old days to discourage sneak attacks. Left by Domn-inus at the threshold of the corridor, Aelius had walked to Aristo-phanes's door under the escort of his right and left side reflection. It was true, no one could approach from behind and not be noticed, but Domitian had been assassinated all the same.
Inside, he faced a curly-headed man wider than he was tall, looking larger because of the reduced size of the office. Other than its resident and the ornate chair he sat in, the room contained a desk that judging by its dimensions must have been built in place. The disproportion might want to impress, but it only struck and unbalanced the visitor. Of the chief investigator, there was neither hide nor hair, although palaces were known to have spy holes to watch and listen unseen.
"Credentials."
Aristophanes followed his words with an urging gesture of the hand, fingers curling back and forth. Aelius handed in his credentials, along with a letter of presentation from His Divinity that specified the variety of his official roles, and the privileges attached to them.
Thus far in his travels, the sight of the senior emperor's seal had sufficed to open doors and cow the mighty. The impatience with which the chamberlain unrolled the letter and ran his eyes over it suggested a different response. Standing in the small space between the edge of the desk and the door, Aelius set his face to the lack of expression that makes an envoy what he is, but was careful to capture all of Aristophanes he could. A loose yellow blouse, clasped by a pin at the neck, covered a yellow tunic to the ankles. Stuck in the sandal-like slippers worn by state officials, his meaty feet pulled the weave of the socks like sausages stuffing their casings. The face perusing the letter had a double—no, triple—chin, the cheeks pushed up to the chamberlain's eyes with pink rolls of healthy, unveined fat. Aelius had dealt with state eunuchs before and knew they came in all sizes; this was obesity due to being a sedentary glutton, not to castration.
"Why are you still in Mediolanum?"
It was a predictable question, whose answer Aelius had had time to anticipate between the barracks and here. "Historical research, Eminence."
Aristophanes stared at him above the imperial letter. "Not awaiting His Divinity's instructions before continuing your journey?"
"That is a given, Eminence."
One of the bejeweled hands relented its grasp on the letter, so that the paper curled back up into a roll. "Yet you have become involved in other than reading the shelves."
"How so?"
"The most perfect gentleman at the lead of the city speculatores has protested to this office because of your interference in the matter of Minucius Marcellus's death."
This was less expected. Aelius had not gone as far as imagining a collaboration from that quarter but assumed that his actions would not be challenged. "Has the most perfect gentleman protested it or pointed it out, Eminence? Your Eminence readily sees that a specific clause in my credentials authorizes me to look into crimes that seem to have political implications and to report directly to Nicomedia."
Letter and credentials were slowly placed in the middle of the desk, so that it was unclear whether Aelius should take them back or leave them there. "He protested it," Aristophanes specified. "There is nothing political about Marcellus's murder, and besides, sentences have already been issued against those responsible. I believe the expression is the case is closed. But because this office is concerned that no misunderstandings arise among officials, Commander, an interview with the chief speculator has been set up for you next door. I am confident you will both profit from it."
"Next door" wa
s often a misnomer in an imperial residence. Here, it was nonsense. In the time it took a polite but disgruntled Aelius to retrieve his papers, an eager young man in a secretary's knee-length smock materialized at the threshold to serve as a guide. Hands clasped, elbows at an angle, he led the way through a maze of corridors and stairs that might well zigzag back to a room sharing a wall with Aristo-phanes's office.
"Go right in, Commander."
Here the space was nearly excessive. Four desks, shelves, and chairs did not begin to fill it; a detailed city map on sheepskin stretched on the wall behind the principal desk, on the corner of which sat a middle-aged man in army trousers and boots.
"You made His Eminence get up two hours early," he said.
"I came when I was bidden, perfectissimus"
Papers handed in. "A-elius Spar-tia-nus. You pronounce it with a z or hard t sound?"
"A hard t sound."
The chief speculator did not give his name. But however he was called, Aelius had in his twelve years of soldiering learned to recognize a man risen from the sordid ranks of police informer to the role of interrogator, and on from there. There was nothing wrong with the process, of course: It all depended on the reasons for promotion. A short gray bristle covered his skull, too short even for a soldier, and only a little longer than a wrestler's. He'd lost the thumb of his right hand. But with that animal-like paw he easily received, opened, and held Aelius's credentials at arm's length to read them, so perhaps he was left-handed, or else had well adapted to his mutilation.
"Caesar's envoy." He read moving his lips, pronouncing the words under his breath, as Aelius's own father had always done. "All the way from Aspalatum, by way of Treveri." He raised his voice in the middle of a whispered sentence, still reading.
The observations required no answer, so Aelius stood with his eyes to the wall behind the speculator, scuffed by the backs of chairs under the large city map. Whoever used the three empty desks was supernumerary, or so orderly as not to leave traces of work in progress in his absence. The bullish gray head stayed low on the papers, spelling out words.