Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (109 page)

‘Only the
richest
people. How much money did the organizers of this betting scheme take in today, I wonder? And how much will they actually have to pay out?’

‘Gordianus, what are you getting at?’

‘Lucius, consult your racing card. You’ve noted all the winners with a chalk mark. Read them off to me – not the colour or the driver, just the horses’ names.’

‘Suspicion – that was the first race. Then Lightning . . . Straight Arrow . . . Bright Eyes . . . Golden Dagger . . . Partridge . . . Oh! By Hercules! Gordianus, you don’t think – that item in the
Daily
. . .’

I quoted from memory. ‘ “The bookworm pokes his head outside tomorrow. Easy prey for the sparrow, but partridges go hungry. Bright-eyed Sappho says: Be suspicious! A dagger strikes faster than lightning. Better yet: an arrow. Let Venus conquer all!” From “Sappho” to “Sparrow,” a list of horses –
and every one a winner
.’

‘But how could that be?’

‘I know this much: Fortune had nothing to do with it.’

I left the crowded stadium and hurried through the empty streets. Decimus Brutus would be detained by the closing ceremonies. I had perhaps an hour before he would arrive home.

The slave at the door recognized me. He frowned. ‘The master—’

‘—is still at the Circus Maximus. I’ll wait for him. In the meantime . . . please tell your mistress she has a visitor.’

The slave raised an eyebrow but showed me into a reception room off the central garden. Lowering sunlight on the fountain splashing in the courtyard outside sent reflected lozenges of light dancing across the ceiling.

I did not have long to wait. Sempronia stepped into the room alone, without even a handmaiden. She was not smiling.

‘The door slave announced you as Gordianus the Finder.’

‘Yes. We met . . . briefly . . . this morning.’

‘I remember. You’re the fellow who went snooping for Deci last night, poking about at the Senian Baths and those awful places around the circus. Oh yes, word got back to me. I have my own informants. What are you doing here?’

‘I’m trying to decide what I should tell your husband.’

She gave me an appraising look. ‘What is it, exactly, that you think you know?’

‘Decimus Brutus thinks that you and the charioteer Diocles are lovers.’

‘And what do you think, Finder?’

‘I think he’s right. But I have no proof.’

She nodded. ‘Is that all?’

‘Your husband thinks you and Diocles were plotting to kill him today.’

Sempronia laughed out loud. ‘Dear old bookworm!’ She sighed. ‘Marrying Deci was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m the consul’s wife! Why in Hades would I want to kill him?’

I shrugged. ‘He misunderstood that blind item you put into the
Daily Acts
.’

‘Which . . . blind item?’

‘There’s been more than one? Of course. That makes sense. What better way to communicate with Diocles, since you’ve been confined here and he’s been banned from your house. What I don’t understand is how you ever convinced Diocles to fix today’s races.’

She crossed her arms and gave me a long, calculating look. ‘Diocles loves me; more than I love him, I’m afraid, but when was Venus ever fair? He did it for love, I suppose; and for money. Diocles stands to make a tremendous amount of money today, as do all the racers who took part in the fix. You can’t imagine how much money. Millions. We worked on the scheme for months. Setting up the betting circle, bribing the racers . . .’

‘ “We”? Do you mean your whole circle was in on it?’

‘Some of them. But mostly it was Diocles and myself.’ She frowned. ‘And then Deci had to throw his jealous fit. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, with the races less than a month away. I had to have some way to communicate with Diocles. The
Daily
was the answer.’

‘You must have extraordinary powers of . . .’

‘Persuasion?’

‘Organization, I was going to say.’

‘Like a man?’ She laughed.

‘One thing puzzles me still. What will you do with millions of sesterces, Sempronia? You can’t possibly hide that much money from your husband. He’d want to know where such a windfall came from.’

She peered at me keenly. ‘What do
you
think I intend to do with the money?’

‘I think you intend to . . . get rid of it.’

‘How?’

‘I think you mean to . . . send it abroad.’

‘Where?’

‘To Spain. To Quintus Sertorius, the rebel general.’

Her face became as pale as the pearls in her hair. ‘How much do you want, Gordianus?’

I shook my head. ‘I didn’t come here to blackmail you.’

‘No? That’s what Scorpus wanted.’

‘Your husband’s man? Did he discover the truth?’

‘Only about the racing scheme. He seemed to think that entitled him to a portion of the takings.’

‘There must be plenty to go around.’

She shook her head. ‘Scorpus would never have stopped wanting more.’

‘So he was drowned.’

‘Diocles arranged it. There are men around the circus who’ll do that sort of job for next to nothing, especially for a fellow like Diocles. Blackmailers deserve nothing better.’

‘Is that a threat, Sempronia?’

‘That depends. What do you want, Finder?’

I shrugged. ‘The truth. It’s the only thing that ever seems to satisfy me. Why Sertorius? Why risk so much – everything – to help his rebellion in Spain? Do you have a family tie? A loved one who’s thrown his lot with the rebels? Or is it that you and Sertorius are . . .’

‘Lovers?’ She laughed without mirth. ‘Is that all you can think, that being a woman, I must be driven by passion? Can you not imagine that a woman might have her own politics, her own convictions, her own agenda, quite separate from a husband or a lover? I don’t have to justify myself to you, Gordianus.’

I nodded. Feeling her eyes on me, I paced the room. The sun was sinking. Flashes of warm sunlight reflected from the fountain outside caressed my face. Decimus Brutus would return home at any moment. What would I tell him?

I made up my mind. ‘You asked me what I want from you, Sempronia. Actually, there is the matter of a refund, which I think you must admit is only proper, given the circumstances . . .’

At noon the next day, I sat beside Lucius Claudius in his garden, sharing the sunlight and a cup of wine. His interest in that morning’s
Daily Acts
had been eclipsed by the bags of coins I brought with me. Scooping the little scrolls off the table, he emptied the bags and collected the sesterces into heaping piles, gleefully counting and recounting them.

‘All here!’ he announced, clapping his hands. ‘Every single sesterce I lost yesterday on the races. But Gordianus, how did you get my money back?’

‘That, Lucius, must forever remain a secret.’

‘If you insist. But this has something to do with Sempronia and that charioteer, doesn’t it?’

‘A secret is a secret, Lucius.’

He sighed. ‘Your discretion is exasperating, Gordianus. But I’ve learned my lesson. I shall never again be drawn into a betting scheme like that!’

‘I only wish I could have arranged for every person who was cheated yesterday to get his money back,’ I said. ‘Alas, their lessons shall be more costly than yours. I don’t think this particular set of plotters will attempt to pull off such a scheme a second time. Hopefully, Roman racing can return to its pristine innocence.’

Lucius nodded. ‘The important thing is, Deci is safe and out of danger.’

‘He was always safe; never in danger.’

‘Rude of him, though, not to pay you the balance of your fee.’

I shrugged. ‘When I saw him at his house yesterday evening, after the races, I had nothing more to report to him. He hired me to uncover a plot against his life. I failed to do so.’

And what, I thought, if I had reported everything to the consul – Sempronia’s adultery, the racing fix, the betting scheme, Scorpus’ attempted blackmail and his murder, Sempronia’s seditious support of Sertorius? Terrified of scandal, Decimus Brutus would merely have hushed it all up. Sempronia would have been no more faithful to him than before, and no one’s wagers would have been returned. No, I had been hired to save the consul’s life, discreetly; and as far as I was concerned, my duty to Decimus Brutus ended when I discovered there was no plot against his life after all. My discretion would continue.

‘Still, Gordianus, it was niggardly of Deci not to pay you . . .’

Discretion forbade me from telling Lucius that the other half of my fee had indeed been paid – by Sempronia. It was the only way I could see to save my own neck. I had convinced her that by paying the fee for my investigation she purchased my discretion. Thus I avoided the same fate as Scorpus.

At the same time, I had requested a refund of Lucius’ wagers, which seemed only fair.

Lucius cupped his hands around a pile of coins, as if they emitted a warming glow. He smiled ruefully. ‘I tell you what, Gordianus – as commission for recouping my gambling losses, what if I give you . . . five percent of the total?’

I sucked in a breath and eyed the coins on the table. Bethesda would be greatly pleased to see the household coffer filled to overflowing. I smiled at Lucius and raised an eyebrow.

‘Gordianus, don’t give me that look!’

‘What look?’

‘Oh, very well! I shall give you ten percent. But not a sesterce more!’

IF A CYCLOPS COULD VANISH IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

Eco was incensed. That was all I could tell at first – that he was angry and frustrated almost to the point of tears. At such a time, I felt acutely aware of his muteness. He was usually quite skilled at expressing himself with gestures and signals, but not when he was flustered.

‘Calm down,’ I said quietly, placing my hands on his shoulders. He was at that age when boys shoot up like beanstalks. It seemed to me that not long ago, placing my hands at the same height, I would have been patting his head. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘what is the problem?’

My adopted son took a deep breath and composed himself, then seized my hand and led me across the overgrown garden at the centre of the house, under the portico, through a curtained doorway and into his room. By the bright morning light from the small window I surveyed the few furnishings – a narrow sleeping cot, a wooden folding chair and a small trunk.

It was not to these that Eco directed my attention, but to a long niche about knee-high in the plastered wall across from his bed. The last time I had ventured into the room, a hodgepodge of toys had been shoved into the niche – little boats made of wood, a leather ball for playing trigon, pebbles of coloured glass for Egyptian board games. Now the space had been neatly cleared – the cast-off toys put away in the trunk along with his spare tunic, I presumed – and occupying the shelf were a number of tiny figurines made of fired clay, each representing some monster of legend with a horrible visage. There was a Medusa with snakes for hair, a Cyclops with one eye, a Nemean lion, and numerous others.

They were crudely made but tinted with bright colours, and I knew that Eco treasured them. A potter with a shop down by the Tiber made them in his spare time out of bits of leftover clay; Eco had been doing occasional odd jobs for the man and accepting the figurines as payment. He insisted on showing them off to me and to Bethesda whenever he brought a new one home. I always made a point of admiring them, but my beloved concubine made no secret of her disdain for them. Her upbringing in Egypt had given her attitudes different – dare I say more superstitious? – than those of a Roman, and where I found the figurines to be harmless and charming, she saw in them something distasteful, even sinister.

I had not realized how large Eco’s collection had grown. I counted fifteen figurines, all lined up in a row.

‘Why do you show me these?’ I asked.

He pointed to three gaps in the evenly spaced row.