The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (69 page)

“
Tell me, Centurion Urbicus, do you have a witness? Is there anyone here who can vouchsafe your drunken revel that night?”

Urbicus looked blinkingly around the assembly. His sight settled on Decurion Scorilo at the head of the Horse Guard brigade colorfully garbed in their Germanic ethnic uniforms.

“
My friend and colleague Decurion Scorilo of Caesar’s special Horse Guard can vouch for me, Inspector. He was there too. Ask him yourself.”

Suetonius cast a questioning eye towards Scorilo, who responded haltingly in his Germanic-accented Latin.

“
Yes, sir. We both enjoyed Caesar’s party for the troops that night, sir.”

“
So you too, Decurion, partied into the night as well? Also until dawn?”

“
Of course. That’s what soldier’s drinking bouts are for.”

Suetonius turned to Salvius Julianus’s group of
lictors
and grooms. Beside them was the jetty clerk of
The Alexandros
he had brought with him.

“
Officer of the Watch,” he called to the clerk, “you register traffic to and from
The Alexandros
, yes?”

The uniformed Alexandrian was prodded forward gently by Julianus to respond.

“
I do, noble sir,” he stammered.

“
Tell us who you are, identify your unit, and describe your duties,” the biographer said.

“
Sir, I am Danaos, born at Tanis of the Nile Delta marshes. I am of mixed Greek and native descent. I am a 
tesserarius
of the Alexandrian
Auxilia.
I supervise and roster the sentries of the Watch. During this imperial river tour I am the shore clerk at the jetty to
The Alexandros
, the Governor’s barque offshore. I and my staff monitor and record all movement to and from that vessel.”

“
Do you read and write,
Tesserarius
Danaos of Tanis?”

“
I read some Greek and some Latin, sir, with a little more in the local Demotic. I have not mastered the art of writing well. I can maintain records but not express myself.”

“
My fine scribe Strabon has acquired the traffic records of the past few days at
The Alexandros
. He has in his possession the record of the day and night, and the following days too, of two evenings ago. This is believed to be the time of Antinous’s death,” Suetonius announced for all to hear. “I want you,
Tesserarius
Danaos, to tell us if the record for the first evening is written in your hand?”

Strabon untied the ribbon bindings of the papyrus sheets and took the papers to Danaos to inspect.

“
Indeed, sir,” the clerk confirmed, “this first sheet is my own writing. I was the attending registrar that night. The next morning’s sheet is written by one of my subordinates.”

“
Tell us, Danaos, had there been any unusual traffic that afternoon or evening?”

“
Not especially that I recall, other than the Governor’s group departing for an overnight celebration at Caesar’s quarters. The traffic was of familiar faces at
The Alexandros
. The only unusual visitor was a guest of the Governor’s consort, Anna Perenna, who arrived with a letter of authority from her. He arrived at dusk.”

Titianus glanced slowly around at his consort at his side, whose eyes were firmly planted ahead of her. The ashen powdered face was unresponsive.

“
Did the visitor have a name, Danaos?” Suetonius asked.

“
The young noble’s name and a note on his authority are inscribed on the sheet, sir. His face was not known to me. I had no recollection of a previous visit.”

“
Will you read your ascription of his name to us,
Tesserarius
,” the Special Inspector asked. Strabon offered Danaos the sheet to read. Danaos cast his eye over the sheet.

“
The letter of authority, an invitation written and sealed in the hand of Lady Perenna, introduced him as Lysias of Bithynia. It said he was attached to the
contubernium
of the Imperial Household, and was invited to a professional consultation with Lady Perenna. My notation confirms this to be so.”

Thais and Lysias, standing not far from Suetonius’s group, tensed in astonishment. Lysias grasped Thais’s hand urgently, his features expressing utter astonishment. Hadrian’s sight fell enquiringly across the couple in deep foreboding.

“
How would you describe Lysias of Bithynia to us,
Tesserarius
? How tall was he? How was he dressed? What company attended him? And so on? Would you recognize him if you met him again?” Suetonius asked, his eyes narrowing to interpret the clerk’s features. “Is he here among us now, for example?”

He knew full well Lysias stood close nearby accompanying Thais.

“
Why yes, great lord, the fellow is with us here as we speak. I recognized him the moment I arrived. He is even wearing the same uniform of his visit at
The Alexandros
,” Danaos burbled with helpful enthusiasm.

“
Uniform? A uniform?” Suetonius called, turning towards Lysias who was garbed in the regular
chiton
tunic and mantle of a Greek civilian, not his hunting cuirass, helmet, and weapons.

“
Yes, sir. There. Over there,” the
tesserarius
burbled
,
pointing across the chamber.

The entire assembly turned their heads in unison in the direction of his gesture.

“
On the bier. The body. The dead person. That’s Lysias of Bithynia!” he declared with confidence.

A rustle of louder voices rippled across the gathering. Hadrian sat up abruptly to observe the clerk more closely.

“
The body upon the bier?! You believe that to be Lysias?” Suetonius called aloud to confirm Danaos’ statement.

“
Yes, certainly. He’s still wearing the same armor he wore at the jetty. That fair-haired young man over there. Fine looking fellow. I’d recognize him anywhere. It was him,” the
tesserarius
confirmed. “He has died, has he?”

CHAPTER 32

“
T
essararius
Danaos, are you sure the man lying upon the bier was the fellow who said he was Lysias of Bithynia three evenings ago? He was the man you permitted to travel to the governor’s barque at Lady Perenna’s invitation as recorded in your log?”

“
Yes, sir. Indeed, sir. I am sure, sir. Am I mistaken somehow?”

Suetonius and Clarus looked to each other. Lysias had not been lying. He had not visited
The Alexandros
three evenings ago. It was just as he had protested earlier. The person presenting himself as ‘Lysias’ had been Antinous, impersonating Lysias for a reason of his own. He did so with a written invitation of authority from the priestess Anna Perenna inscribed in Lysias’s name. What could this mean?

The Special Inspector asked a question aloud for all to hear.

“
Look again at your papyrus sheet, Danaos. The visitor you know as Lysias was unaccompanied by others at the time. But will you read the name of the person or persons who preceded or followed him?”

Suetonius had already recalled the names from his earlier inspection of the records.

Danaos drew the sheet closer to his sight and fingered the column of names written in his own Greek alphabet scratchings. His finger paused at a name.

“
Yes, sir. The youth Lysias was preceded by Quintus Urbicus, a centurion of the Alexandrian Praetorian Guard, the governor’s security unit. They both travelled together in our runabout gondola to the
The Alexandros
to attend the Lady Anna Perenna.”

A flutter of whispers swept the assembly. Suetonius raised a finger for quiet.

“
And again,
Tessararius,
have you noted the name on your list following after the person you know as Lysias? Did he too travel to
The
Alexandros
? What was this person’s name and, and what time of day would it have been?”

The clerk returned his finger to the sheet and followed it down the column.

“
Yes, the dead man over yonder was followed by a senior officer of the German Guard. One Scorilo, a decurion of the Horse Guard. The three were boated to the governor’s barque together. The time, you ask? It was then dusk. Night was quickly approaching. I recall it well. My shift was to finish in only four hours.”

The assembly shuffled in its place.

“
Very well, Danaos, I wish you to now look over the sheets for that same night and the following day to tell me when these three visitors returned from
The Alexandros
?” the Special Inspector asked. He had remembered the discrepancies noted the previous day.

The
tessararius
pored through the subsequent sheets of papyrus. Several names were listed as coming or going, including the governor’s party’s return at high sun the following day, but Danaos could find no reference to either Lysias or Urbicus departing the vessel at the wharf. He then spied Decurion Scorilo’s name on a second sheet recording his departure from
The Alexandros
four hours after dawn the following day.

“
My subordinate has been a fool or greatly remiss, masters! Neither the youth Lysias nor Centurion Urbicus are listed as departing the governor’s vessel, yet the German decurion is registered when he departed four hours after dawn the next day. My subordinate will be punished for his omissions, masters!”

“
They might not be omissions,
Tessararius
. Your subordinate may have been quite accurate in his record. I think I begin to understand the situation,” the biographer muttered. He turned to the gathering and its ruler. He now possessed a greater perception of the issues.

“
We have several contradictions in these testimonies here, Caesar. Firstly, we have a clerk’s record of a ‘
Lysias
’ visiting
The Alexandros.
This turns out to be an impersonation by Antinous for a reason as yet unknown, and we have two guardsmen who accompany the youth to the barque. Yet neither Antinous nor one of the two guardsmen appears to have later returned from the vessel, unless our records are in serious error?

In the meantime we know some dire fate befell Antinous. He appears to have been seriously wounded and bled to death, and either fallen overboard or been placed in the Nile. Meanwhile the highly-regarded centurion who had accompanied him happens to be one of a troop of guardsmen who incidentally stumble upon two fishermen as they discover the body of the youth the following morning in the river’s edge. These coincidences strike me as unlikely.”

Suetonius allowed a few moments to pass to let that information settle in. He then raised further contradictions.

“
Caesar, I need not remind us how both Centurion Urbicus and Decurion Scorilo has told us here only moments ago how they spent the entire night at a troops’ celebration of The Isia from that same dusk until the following dawn. Yet the testimony here proclaims to us they were in widely diverse places at the very same time.

Centurion Urbicus says he was at an all-night party, while these papyrus records claim he spent the night aboard
The Alexandros.
He also managed to be by the riverside at the time Antinous’s body was hauled from the Nile.

Separately, we have depositions taken from Decurion Scorilo declaring how he performed Guard duties at Caesar’s welcoming banquet for Senator Commodus throughout that very same night. Yet he appears magically to have been in three places at precisely the same time – at an all-night party for the troops, onboard
The Alexandros
, and as a Guard officer attending the welcoming banquet. These competing facts are a great mystery and enigma, my lord.”

Both Urbicus and Scorilo stood motionless, undisturbed by the sardonic observations. Urbicus eventually cleared his throat to speak.

“
My lord Special Inspector, may I speak? These records are obviously a blatant forgery! Not only were we entertained all night at Caesar’s party for his troops, those sheets from the jetty are inconsistent and bear poor witness. I piss on their inaccuracies and those who would slander senior, proven officers of Caesar’s Guards. It’s an offence against our honor! I will pursue the offender for blood satisfaction!”

The centurion’s stern accusation shifted the atmosphere considerably. Suetonius became fearful of how the swiftness of judicial favor could shift ground so easily. He was determined to probe deeper before Urbicus or Scorilo wriggled off the hook.

“
The letter of authority, the invitation from Lady Anna Perenna, was this retained,
tessararius
, to confirm at least one of these claims?” Suetonius asked, swiftly subsiding into desperation.

“
No, great lord, only my notation was entered on the sheet telling it had been sighted. The youth Lysias, if that’s who he was, took it with him. But the writing was definitely in the hand of the Lady. I have sighted My Ladyship’s invitations often,” the clerk confirmed. He was now confused about the real identity of ‘
the youth Lysias’
. Governor Titianus glanced to his consort at the unexpected implication of
many invitations
.

“
The Lady Anna Perenna,” Suetonius articulated rhetorically to the gathering, “just who is the Lady Anna Perenna? Tell us, priestess of Rome, who you are, what was your original name prior to adoption by your cult, and where were you born? What is your origin?”