House Of The Vestals (17 page)

"Considering how hard you work, Gordianus, I suppose you must enjoy the leisure of the holiday immensely."

"Actually, I often find myself busier on festival days than at other times."

"Really?"

"Crime takes no holidays," I said. "Or more accurately: crime enjoys the holidays immensely. You have no idea how many thefts and murders occur on festival days-not to mention indiscretions and infidelities."

"I wonder why?"

I shrugged. "The normal constraints of society are loosened; people find themselves more open to temptation and do things they ordinarily wouldn't, for all sorts of reasons-greed, spite, or simply for a joke. Families are gathered together, whether they like one another or not; that can lead to a few heads being bashed. And the expense of entertaining can drive even a wealthy man to deeds of desperation. As for those already of a criminal disposition, consider the advantages to their trade during the festivals, when people let down their guard and stupefy themselves with too much food and wine. Oh yes, a Roman holiday is an invitation to crime, and they are often my busiest days of the year."

"Then I count myself lucky to have your company today, Gordianus!" said Lucius, raising his cup.

At that moment we heard the front door open, followed by loud voices from the vestibule, and then a pair of young slaves came tripping into the atrium. Their cheeks were ruddy from the cold, almost as red as the felt caps on their heads. Their eyes were bleary from drinking, but they straightened considerably at the sight of their master.

"Thropsus, Zoticus, I trust that you're enjoying yourselves?" called Lucius heartily.

Thropsus, who was slender and blond, suddenly stiffened, not sure how to react, while his companion, who was stocky and dark, abruptly sputtered with laughter and ran with a whoop through the atrium toward the back of the house.

"Yes, Master, very much, Master," said Thropsus finally. He shifted from foot to foot, as if waiting to be dismissed. Finally Lucius picked up a crust of bread and threw it at the boy. "Go on!" he laughed. Thropsus hurried after Zoticus, looking thoroughly confused.

We drank in silence for a while, enjoying the wine. "You certainly strive for informality, Lucius," I remarked wryly, "even when it makes the poor slave a bit uncomfortable."

"Thropsus is new in the household. He doesn't understand; it's Saturnalia!" said Lucius grandly. He had just finished his second cup of wine and was reaching to pour himself another. I turned to Eco, expecting him to wink at me in amusement, but instead he seemed distracted and was looking toward the back of the house.

"And will you go so far as to wait upon your slaves at dinner?" I asked, remembering how Cicero had balked at performing such a reversal.

"Well, no-after all, Gordianus, there are so very many of them in the household and only one of me! I'll already be worn out from visiting with my cousins this afternoon and handing out my presents. But I do let the slaves recline upon the dining couches as if they were guests and take turns serving each other, while I take my meal in my bedchamber. They always seem to enjoy the little charade, judging from all the noise they make. And you? Will you play servant to your household slaves at dinner?"

"There are only two of them."

"Ah, yes, your bodyguard, that lumbering Belbo, and of course, your Egyptian concubine, the beautiful Bethesda. What man could refuse to wait upon her?" Lucius sighed, and then shivered. He has always been smitten with Bethesda, and more than a little intimidated by her.

"Eco and I will be going home to prepare their dinner immediately after we take our leave of you," I said, "and tonight, before the people mass in the streets with their lit tapers, Eco and I will serve the two of them dinner while they recline upon our couches."

"Delicious! I should come to watch!"

"Only if you're willing to carry a tray like the other citizens in the house."

"Well…"

At that moment, from the corner of my eye, I saw Eco jerk his head toward the back of the house with a sudden, birdlike motion. His hearing can be quite acute, and so it was that he heard the approach of the young slave before Lucius or I did. A moment later Thropsus came running into the atrium with a look of shock and dismay on his face. He opened his mouth but

"Well, Thropsus, what is it?" said Lucius, wrinkling his fleshy brow.

"Something terrible, Master!"

"Yes?"

"It's old Stephanos, Master-"

"Yes, yes, spit it out."

Thropsus wrung his hands and made a face. "Please, Master, come see for yourself!"

"Now, what could be so terrible that the slave can't even utter it?" said Lucius, making light of the matter as he laboriously rose from his chair. "Come, Gordianus, it's probably a matter for you!" he said, laughing.

But all laughter ceased when we followed young Thropsus into the room where Lucius had shown us his silver. AH the windows were shuttered except one close by the chest. By the cold light that entered we surveyed the disaster which had tied Thropsus's tongue. The red cloth was still thrown over the chest, but now it was all askew, and every piece of silver had vanished! In front of the chest, on the floor, the old slave Stephanos lay un-moving on his side with his arms raised to his chest. His forehead was dented with a bloody gash, and though his eyes were wide open, I had seen enough dead men to know that Stephanos had departed from the service of Lucius Claudius forever.

"By Hercules, what's happened?" gasped Lucius. "The silver! And Stephanos! Is he-?"

Eco knelt down to feel for a pulse, and put his ear to the dead slave's parted lips. He looked up at us and shook his head gravely.

"But what's happened?" cried Lucius. "Thropsus, what do you know about this?"

"Nothing, Master! I came into the room and found it exactly as it is now, and then came to you right away."

"And Zoticus," said Lucius darkly. "Where is he?"

"I don't know, Master."

"What do you mean? You came in together."

"Yes, but I had to relieve myself, so I went to the privy at the other corner of the house. Afterward I went looking for Zoticus, but I couldn't find him."

"Well, go and find him now!" blustered Lucius.

Thropsus meekly turned to leave. "No, wait," I said. "It seems to me that there's no hurry to find Zoticus, if indeed he's still in the house. I think it might be more interesting to discover why you happened to come into this room at all, Thropsus."

"I was looking for Zoticus, as I said." He lowered his eyes.

"But why here? This is one of your master's private rooms. I shouldn't think that anyone is supposed to come in here except a slave of Stephanos's rank, or perhaps a cleaning girl. Why were you looking for Zoticus here, Thropsus?"

"I-I thought I heard a noise."

"What sort of noise?"

Thropsus made a pained face. "I thought I heard someone… laughing."

Eco suddenly clapped his hands for our attention and nodded vigorously.

"What are you saying, Eco, that you heard this laughter, too?"

He nodded, and made a motion with his hands to indicate that from the atrium it had sounded faint and far away.

"The laughter came from this room, Thropsus?"

"I thought so. First the laughter, and then… then a kind of rattling noise, and a banging, or a thud, not very loud."

I looked at Eco, who pursed his lips ambivalently and shrugged. He, too, seated in the atrium, had heard something from the back of the house, but the sound had been indistinct.

"Was it Zoticus laughing?" I asked.

"I suppose so," said Thropsus dubiously.

"Come now, was it Zoticus or not? Surely you're familiar with his laughter-you were both laughing when you came in from the street a while ago."

"It didn't sound like Zoticus, but I suppose it must have been, unless there's someone else in the house."

"There's no one," said Lucius. "I'm certain of that."

"Someone could have come in," I said, stepping toward the open shutters. "Curious-this latch seems to have snapped. Was it broken before?"

"I don't think so," said Lucius.

"What's outside the window?"

"A small garden."

"And what surrounds the garden?"

"The house, on three sides, and a wall on the other."

"And on the other side of the wall?"

"The street. Oh dear, I see what you mean. Yes, I suppose someone young and agile enough could have scaled the wall and broken into the house."

"Could the same wall be scaled from this side as well?"

"I suppose."

"Even by a man with a bag full of silver over his shoulder?"

"Gordianus, you don't think that Zoticus-"

"I hope not, for his sake, but stranger things have happened when a slave is given a small taste of freedom, the experience of spending a few coins, and a little too much wine."

"Merciful Fortune," breathed Lucius. "The silver!" He walked to the chest and reached out as if to touch phantom vessels where the silver had vanished. "The ewer, the jewelry, the cups-all gone!"

"There's no sign of a weapon," I said, looking about the room. "Perhaps one of the missing pieces was used to strike that blow to Stephanos's head. Something with a rather straight, hard edge, by the look of the wound. Perhaps the plate…"

"What a horrid idea! Poor Stephanos." Lucius rested his hands on the lid of the chest and suddenly drew back with a gasp of horror. He held up his hand and I saw that the palm was smeared with blood.

"Where did that come from?" I said.

"The cloth atop the chest. It's hard to see in this light, the cloth being red, but there's a spot that's wet with blood."

"Here, it's been pushed all askew. Let's put it as it was before." We straightened the cloth and discovered that the bloody spot was right above the edge of the top of the chest.

"As if he hit his forehead on the hard wood," said Lucius.

"Yes, as if he fell-or was pushed," I said.

Thropsus cleared his throat. "Master, should I go and look for Zoticus now?"

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "We shall look for him together."

A quick search of the slaves' quarters revealed that Zoticus was not in the house. We returned to the pilfered treasure room.

"Should I go search for Zoticus in the streets, Master?" The quaver in Thropsus's voice indicated that he was well aware of the delicacy of his position. If Zoticus had committed murder and theft, was it not likely that his friend Thropsus had been a partner in the scheme? Even if Thropsus was entirely innocent, the testimony of slaves is by law extracted through torture; if the silver was not retrieved and the matter resolved quickly, Thropsus was likely to face an ugly predicament. My friend Lucius has a good heart, but he comes from a very old patrician family after all, and the patricians of Rome didn't get to be where they are today by being altruistic or squeamish, especially in handling their property, human or otherwise.

Lucius dismissed Thropsus to his quarters and then turned to me. "Gordianus, what shall I do?" He moaned, at that moment not sounding very patrician at all.

"Keep Thropsus here, of course. Out on his own he might panic and get some mad idea about running off, and that always ends badly for a slave. Besides," I added under my breath, "he just might be guilty of conspiring to steal your silver. I also suggest you hire some gladiators, if you can find any who are sober, to go round up Zoticus, if they can find him."

"And if he hasn't got the silver on him?"

"Then it's up to you to decide how to go about obtaining the truth from him."

"What if he protests his innocence?"

"I suppose it's possible that some outsider might have come over the wall and stolen your silver. Another of your slaves, perhaps, or someone from the Street of the Silversmiths who would have known about your recent purchases. But find Zoticus first and find out what he knows."

Eco, who had been looking pensive for some time, suddenly demanded my attention. He pointed at the corpse of Stephanos and then performed a mime, smiling stupidly and pretending to laugh.

Lucius was taken aback. "Really, there's nothing funny about it!"

"No, Lucius, you misunderstand. Are you saying, Eco, that it was Stephanos whom you heard laughing?"

Eco nodded, in such a way as to indicate that he had been debating his judgment of the matter and had finally made up his mind about it.

"Stephanos, laughing?" said Lucius, in the same tone he might have used if Eco had indicated that he had seen Stephanos breathing fire or juggling his eyeballs.

"He did seem a rather dour fellow," I agreed, giving Eco a skeptical look. "And if it was Stephanos who laughed, then why didn't Thropsus say so?"

"Probably because he had never heard Stephanos laugh before," said Lucius. "I don't think I ever heard such a thing myself." He looked down at the corpse with a puzzled expression. "Are you sure it was Stephanos you heard laughing, Eco?"

Eco crossed his arms and nodded gravely. He had made up his mind.

"Ah well, perhaps we'll never know for sure," I said, walking toward the door.

"You're not staying to help me, Gordianus?"

"Alas, Lucius Claudius, I must take my leave for now. There's a dinner to be prepared, and a concubine to be served."

Eco and I managed to get home relatively unscathed. A group of giggling prostitutes impeded our progress for a while by dancing in a ring around us, another King Numa carried aloft in a litter poured a cup of wine over my head, and a drunken gladiator vomited on one of Eco's shoes, but the trip from the Palatine to the Subura was otherwise uneventful.

The fare we prepared for dinner was very simple, as suited my talents. Even so, Bethesda seemed barely able to keep out of the kitchen. Every so often she peered through the doorway wearing a skeptical frown and shaking her head, as if the very way I held a knife betrayed my utter incompetence in culinary matters.

At last, as the winter sun was beginning to sink into the west, Eco and I emerged from the kitchen to find Bethesda and Belbo comfortably ensconced on the dining couches normally reserved for ourselves. Eco pulled up the little dining tables while I fetched the various courses-a lentil soup, a millet porridge with ground lamb, an egg pudding with honey and pine nuts.