Dark Omens (26 page)

The handsome face looked startled. ‘Not that we have found. Finding half a body is peculiar, of course – but didn’t the same thing happen to some ancient priest you knew? I hear that only half that body was discovered in the ice.’

There was a little buzz of shocked surprise from the assembled slaves at this. ‘That’s true!’ I said, surprised.

Adonisius shook a baffled head. ‘So now it’s happened twice. There must be some connection, don’t you think? As Lucius says, it can’t be merely a coincidence.’

I stared from Adonisius to the corpse. ‘But with the priest it was the other way about. The head and chest were missing and only the lower part of him was found …’ I trailed off. It had suddenly occurred to me that I could not be altogether sure if that was true. ‘Or so I am informed – I did not actually see the corpse myself,’ I finished awkwardly.

But the Syrian wasn’t listening. ‘No head, citizen?’ He sounded mystified. ‘Then how could anyone be sure that it was him?’

I laughed. ‘That’s the same question that I have asked myself. Someone suggested that it was the sandals that he wore – but I privately suspect there might be other signs. In any case the temple has accepted him – they gave the remains a hurried cremation yesterday.’

The steward had been listening to all this and he stepped forward, doubtfully. ‘That couldn’t have been the bottom half of this one, I suppose? Pardon if I am speaking out of turn.’

‘I don’t think so, steward. That corpse was very fresh. The priest was seen alive and well the night before, but I’m fairly sure that this one has been dead some time – the flesh has got a faintly greenish tinge – though probably it didn’t happen here. I don’t believe this body has been here very long.’

‘What makes you say that, citizen?’ The steward was surprised. ‘We heard he had been missing for half a moon or so and that he’d probably fallen off his horse and killed himself. Surely no one would bother to move his corpse about.’

‘It might not have occurred to me,’ I said, ‘if our party hadn’t found the body of an ancient crone today, in the part of the forest we were searching in. Sad business – she’d obviously been dead some little time, though very well-preserved. But she was also several inches underneath the snow. Yet Genialis was only “almost buried” – by your own account – and “half-submerged in leaves”. That’s obviously true; I can see what you have moved from round the corpse.’ I stooped and ran a little through my fingers. ‘Loose leaves with softish snow mixed into it. Yet it has been snowing hard and freezing since the day he disappeared.’

‘But not the last three days or so,’ the steward pointed out. ‘There’s been quite a thaw – it might have melted round him, I suppose.’

‘In that case, he would partially have thawed as well and there would be much more putrefaction than there is. Let me take a closer look.’

Adonisius stood beside me as I knelt beside the corpse, obviously electing himself my second in command. ‘Then perhaps he hasn’t been dead for very long?’ he offered, thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it’s possible that he was set upon. Dragged from his horse, perhaps, and shut away somewhere. Maybe they were hoping for a ransom, but he died – leaving them with an inconvenient corpse, which they disposed of recently by bringing it out here?’

I shook my head. ‘And drew attention to themselves by cutting it in half? That does not sound plausible to me. Besides, as I say, it’s clear that he’s been dead some little time.’

‘So, do you think this is somehow connected to the priest?’

‘I suppose it must be, though I can’t see how. I suppose that also happened in unfrequented wood. And there’s another thing. It is quite clear what the crone was doing, off the beaten track – she was collecting wood. But what would bring Genialis so far from the road?’

‘Lost his direction in the snow, perhaps?’ the steward said. ‘Or perhaps he was dragged here by some animal – we know that there are hungry wolves about. We’ve heard them several times while we’ve been searching in the woods.’

I looked up at him. ‘Those are not gnaw marks – that looks like an axe.’ I brushed the few remaining leaves away and examined what remained of Genialis with more care.

It was not a pleasant task. He had been a well-fed and unlovely man in life; in death he was frankly horrible. The plump face was white and bloodless, though with that faint greenish suggestion of decay, and it was frozen in a look of agonized surprise. The eyes were closed but they were still disquieting, as if they might suddenly open in a terrible blank stare. His rigid arms were clamped across his chest as stiffly as two spears and his torso simply ended in a jagged cut as though a market butcher had been at work, although his toga, cloak and tunic appeared to be intact, and were drawn up in muddy, filthy folds around his waist. Strangely – apart from smudges on his clothes – there was not much blood on him.

But something appeared to be adhering to his hair, and to his cloak and shoulders when I examined them: tiny wisps of something coarse and brown. I reached out a doubtful hand and contrived to pick up a tiny piece. I rubbed it between my fingers then had a sniff at it. ‘Hessian, by Juno!’ I exclaimed aloud. ‘I do believe his head’s been in a sack.’

‘Perhaps he was imprisoned by whoever stole his purse,’ said Adonisius, now kneeling at my side. ‘And look!’ He was pointing to the empty loop that still dangled from the belt. ‘Someone stole his purse. It’s not unknown for bandits to tie their victims up and put a bag around their heads – so that they can’t see their attackers and testify against the culprits afterwards.’

I nodded doubtfully. ‘Perhaps it is the obvious answer after all. Maybe there really is a half-crazed thief abroad who chops up his victims when he’s done with them and stuffs them in a ditch. If the heads were missing I would have thought of Druids – but this is something different and much more sinister.’ I dusted down my hands and attempted to stand up.

Adonisius reached out a hand to assist me to my feet. ‘Then we must warn the town watch and garrison. If this is some kind of madman, then it’s imperative he’s caught.’

‘I suppose so,’ I conceded. I turned to the steward. ‘Have your men wrap up the body and put it on the cart. You could even begin to offer a lament.’

The slave looked flustered. ‘Well, I just hope that we don’t have to ride with him! Unless our master sends another wagon out for us, I’m going to walk to town – I don’t want to share the journey with half a murdered man. It’s bad enough disturbing his corpse like this at all – I hear he was a stickler for the proper dignities in life – but to put him in a slave cart is another thing again. His ghost is likely to be walking anyway, seeking revenge on whoever chopped him up. You never know what harm …’

Adonisius interrupted him. ‘There is no need to worry. If I am not mistaken, here is Bernadus now.’ He gestured down the lane where a cloaked horseman and a mounted page had just come into sight.

It was indeed Bernadus, on a splendid horse, even more splendidly attired in an impressive dark-blue hooded cloak and leather boots. He rode easily for a stoutish man, and drew up beside me with almost as much elegance as the mounted page who had accompanied him.

‘Citizen Libertus! Hail Caesar Pertinax!’ he murmured, holding out a hand in greeting, but not troubling to dismount. ‘They told me you were here. Where is this body – I hear that it’s been found?’

I stood aside to let him see the place and he trotted his horse closer to peer into the ditch. One glance, however, appeared to be enough. He turned away, his face the same green colour as the dead man’s skin.

‘Dear gods! Nobody told me that there was only half of it. What have I agreed to! Still, it’s too late now. I sent to Silvia to say I’m taking it – and I suppose I’d better do as I arranged. I’ll have to find some funeral herbs to dress it with.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Lucius might have some – he imports that sort of thing. In the meantime I suppose we’d better take the body on the cart.’

‘You could send a funeral litter,’ I told him earnestly. ‘Make it the first thing that you do, when you return to town, and leave these slaves to keep a vigil here meanwhile. The funeral directors will carry him for you – they provide their own embalming herbs and women who’ll lay out the corpse as well. They even have professional mourners who will keep up a lament and they’ll arrange the pyre and everything. It would be expensive – especially sending them out here to get the corpse – but I imagine that’s what Silvia would prefer. Though no doubt you’ll want to check the final details with her, and discuss arrangements for the memorial feast?’

He turned towards me with a grateful smile. ‘Thank you, citizen. I’m glad of your advice. I’ve never had to plan a funeral myself – my elder brother always does that sort of thing. You are quite right. I’ll go to town at once, and try to make contact with the lady Silvia. I imagine that she will be on her way back to town from Marcus’s by now. And I ought to talk to Lucius, perhaps.’

‘I’ll call on Lucius for you, if you like. But then I must go and find my patron straightaway. He’ll be on his way to Glevum as we speak, I’m sure, but if he has not got to his apartment by the time I call, I’ll take my slave and try to intercept him on the road … I’ll let them know what you intend to do, and no doubt they will find you at your villa later on.’

‘Not the villa,’ he said quickly. ‘My poor wife is out there now and she’ll be distressed. I’ll have them take the body to my Glevum residence. I have a townhouse just inside the walls, and that would be a great deal more convenient. Do you know where it is?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, if you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you there,’ he said. ‘I understand you have an animal?’

‘I have a mule,’ I told him, pointing down the lane, where Arlina was munching morosely at wet leaves.

Bernadus threw his head back and gave a nervous laugh. ‘Well, I can’t accompany you to town on that. Give it to my slave, and you can ride my horse.’

Adonisius had sidled up to us. ‘I could take it, masters. He could have my mount.’

Bernadus grinned. He was enjoying this. ‘Better that you ride back home yourself as fast as possible and let your master know what has been found. Libertus will be calling on him later on.’

The Syrian nodded, though he was clearly not happy at being thus dismissed. He climbed on to his horse and urged it down the track, while Bernadus’s escort clambered scowling to the ground, abandoning his lovely animal to me.

‘Ride that thing to my townhouse!’ his master called to him. ‘The Citizen Libertus will collect it there! Come pavement-maker!’ He wheeled his horse and led the way along the lane.

I
thoroughly enjoyed the journey back to town. It is many years since I had ridden such a horse and the next few minutes were a pure delight. Bernadus seemed surprised that I could ride at all.

‘It is good of you to take such trouble and to have joined the search,’ he called, cantering up beside me as we rode the snowy lanes. ‘You hardly knew the dead man, as I understand?’

‘I had a contract with him, that is all,’ I replied, reining in my horse to talk to him. ‘But my patron is acting as Silvia’s guardian and he asked me to come. You, on the other hand, must have been his closest friend. I know he called on you to witness what we had agreed and you were very generous with your hospitality.’

The stout face flushed a little. ‘Hardly a friend, citizen, as one understands the word. I don’t think Genialis ever had a friend.’

I stared at him. That was the second time that someone had said that to me. ‘But you were good to him. You agreed to act as surety for him, with Alfredus Allius, I heard. And I heard you invite him to your country house – “treat my house as your own” you said to him. Which it seems he did. No casual matter either – you entertained him from the Kalends till the day he disappeared. And his ward and slave as well, I understand. You even left Glevum and went out there yourself to host them properly.’

I said this in the hope of provoking some response. It had occurred to me that of all the people Genialis knew, Bernadus had the greatest opportunity for killing him, since the party bound for Dorn had been staying at his house. As for disposing of the body, there was chance of that as well, as he had certainly been travelling up and down that major road, several times after his guest had disappeared. I had seen him at the Janus festival myself.

Moreover, it was his horse that Genialis was riding the last time he was seen – it would be easy for the owner to have it tampered with. It was quite the best theory that I had managed up to now. But what would be the motive, if the men were friends?

As if he had been reading my mind, Bernadus answered that question for himself. ‘Citizen, since it is quite safe to tell you now, as he will never hear of it, I will confess the truth. I could not stand the man. Of course I would have done a great deal for the lady Silvia – as would any man who ever met her, I suspect. If I did not have a wife I would sue for her myself, now that her guardian is safely dead.’ He seemed to realize that this wasn’t very wise and he went on, leaning over to caress his horse’s neck. ‘As to the services that you remind me of, I had no choice but to oblige him in any way he chose. He knew something that could have cost me everything – even my life – and he’d threatened more than once that he would use it if I did not do exactly as he asked.’ He glanced around as if his mounted escort might be overhearing this, but of course there was nobody in sight. Arlina could not move at such a pace.

‘Blackmail?’ I whispered.

‘You could call it that. There was a letter – written on a wax-pad, that is all – one scrape with a warm strigil would have rubbed it out – but he got hold of it. It was very foolish to have written it – it was only intended for my brother’s eyes – several stupid jokes about the Emperor.’ He paused and looked at me. ‘I don’t mean Pertinax, may the gods increase his rule; I mean the last Imperial idiot. Mad as a burnt bear and thought he was a god. Well, everybody said so – I’m not the only one. The trouble was that Genialis found the jokes somehow. I think he intercepted my private messenger. In any case he threatened to betray me – and pass the tablet to the Imperial spies. He said that he knew several of them, and I expect that’s true. He’s the sort of man who would. And you know what would have happened to me then?’