The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (27 page)

“Don’t say a word!” Figulus warned him. “Unless you want to be treating yourself for a broken jaw.”

The surgeon opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, closed his mouth and nodded meekly.

“That’s better. I’m off to my tent. I want you to send my respects to Centurion Marius. Tell him to come to my tent at once. Tell him we’re going to end these killings tonight.”

Shortly after sunset Figulus and Marius clambered up the long slope of rubble. A thin band of clouds had appeared on the horizon at noon and had now thickened into a towering mass that threatened rain. The underside of the cloud mass was awash with a deep red glow from the invisible sun, but here on the shattered remains of the Antonia deep shadows made the going treacherous. The chief centurion was glad for his companion’s help as they picked their way towards the breach in the vast walls of the temple complex. Besides their
swords Marius had brought along two small wineskins to help keep them warm through the coming night as they watched the sentries and waited for the killer to make his appearance.

“What makes you think he’ll be there tonight?” asked Marius.

“He’s not missed one yet,” Figulus smiled. “Our man is a creature of habit.”

“If it is a man.”

Figulus turned to his companion with a faint look of disappointment. “Surely you don’t still think he’s some kind of spook? Not you.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yes, we’ll see. Now let’s keep it quiet, we’re almost inside and I don’t want to attract any attention.”

Marius shot him a sidelong glance. “Why the big secret, sir?”

“Don’t want to give the killer any advance warning. Especially if he might be one of our own men.”

“Who knows we’re here?”

“Just you and me.”

Marius sucked in a breath between his teeth with a faint hissing sound. “Isn’t that a bit risky, sir?”

“Why should it be? Think we can’t take him on ourselves?”

“No. If he’s flesh and blood, we can sort him out well enough.”

“That’s the spirit! Now just give me a hand here . . .”

Once inside the temple complex the two officers stealthily made their way to the inner court, slipping through the shadows of the main gate where all the sentries had been found. Dead and headless.

“What now?” Marius whispered.

“Inside here.” Figulus indicated a small shrine, scarcely
bigger than a section tent. “We’ll dump the wineskins and make a quiet tour of the lads – make sure they’re all right. Then we go back to the shrine and wait.”

Marius looked at him with a scathing expression. “Call that a plan?”

“You think of anything better?”

“Yes.” Marius nodded. “Not being here in the first place.”

“Too late for that. Come on.”

The chief centurion led the way inside the shrine, carefully feeling his way over the charred timbers and chunks of plaster that littered the floor. On one side a section of the wall had fallen in and now offered a view of the ramparts along the inner court. On the opposite wall, a small barred window looked out over the flag-stoned expanse towards the vast wall facing the part of the city still held by the Jewish rebels. Figulus dropped his wineskin by the window.

“I’ll take this side. You’re over there.”

“Right.”

They set their wineskins down and were turning back towards the entrance when Figulus snagged his boot on a sliver of wood.

“Shit!”

“You all right, sir?”

“Fine. Just caught my boot lace. You go on and keep watch.”

Marius nodded and then softly crunched his way outside. The chief centurion joined him a moment later and then beckoned him towards the wall that looked out onto the old town. The night was dark as pitch under the heavy clouds. A cold breeze had picked up, lifting ash and dust into the air in small whirling vortices, so that the two men had to squint and raise their neckerchiefs over their mouths. They moved slowly along the perimeter of the inner court, checking that
each of the four sentries was still in position, and still alive. The dark silhouettes of the men with their helmets, shields and javelins were just visible in the gloom and, satisfied that all was well, Figulus led the way back to the shrine. As they crept over the inner court the first spots of rain pattered around them, and a white flash in the sky over the old town momentarily lit up the temple ruins. Then it was dark, and almost at once a deafening crack of thunder sounded across the city, slowly dying away in an angry rumble. The rain began to slash down, frozen, mid-air, in glinting steel-grey lances as the next burst of lightning filled the sky.

The two officers hurried back to the shrine, Figulus jogging carefully to favour his wounded knee. Inside they made their way to their positions and looked out as the storm lashed the war-torn city. Figulus pitied the men on sentry duty; there would be little shelter for them up on the walls, and he could picture them soaked and shivering in the rising wind that now howled over the battlements.

“Only a fool would be out on a night like this!” grumbled Marius. “I’d wager the killer is tucked up in his tent keeping himself dry and warm.”

“I’d take that bet.” Figulus smiled. “Shall we say a gold piece?”

Marius considered it for a moment, and then nodded. “If he doesn’t show, you pay up.”

“Surely.”

As the night dragged on the two men kept watch over the inner court, occasionally sipping from their wineskins. The storm eventually passed and left a steady, dreary downpour in its wake. From time to time the sentries were visible as their beat brought them into view on the wall. But there was no sign of the killer, and at last, when the first faint hints of dawn gathered on the skyline Figulus slumped down and reached for his wineskin.

“Seems you may start the day a richer man, Marius. Let me toast you.”

The centurion chuckled as his superior pulled out the stopper, raised the wineskin to his lips and squirted a jet of dark liquid into his mouth. When Figulus lowered the wineskin his face relaxed into a look of contentment as the last mouthful of fiery liquid passed down his throat. Marius started to drink from his own wineskin and Figulus waited for him to finish his first draught before speaking.

“Rough stuff, that! Where’d you get it?”

“Samaritan wine-seller. Comes to the camp gate each day with a small mule-train loaded with wine. Not cheap, mind you.”

“Nothing ever is on active service.”

“No . . . No, that’s true.”

“They’re like bloody vultures. Selling us crap like this for a small fortune. There’s hardly a man in the legion who isn’t dipping into his savings right now. Unless the general lets us loose on Jerusalem when the rebels finally give in we’re all going to be a lot poorer.”

“True.”

Figulus looked at his subordinate as Marius took another swig. “You must be worried.”

Marius lowered the wineskin. “Worried? Me? Why’s that, sir?”

“You’ve less than a year’s service to go, haven’t you?”

“Yes. So?”

“So, this is your last chance to get hold of some loot, to see you through your old age. I doubt you’ve been finding this campaign cheap. If you’re like me, you’ve spent a good deal on those merchants.”

Marius watched the chief centurion silently for a moment, and then shrugged. “I’ll be all right. Even if there’s not much
left in my savings there’s the gratuity to look forward to . . . I’ll be all right.”

“I’m sure you will,” Figulus replied quietly. “How much have you found so far?”

Marius stared at him. “Sir?”

“How much of the temple treasure have you found so far?”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Come now, Centurion, don’t be coy. I just wanted to know how much you’ve discovered. You’ve been hard at it. Three nights’ work, not to mention twelve murders. I don’t know how you keep going. Must be even tougher than you look. So, how much?” asked Figulus, before he drank some more wine.

“All right then,” Marius’s craggy face slowly smiled. “Enough for a small estate at Baiae.”

“Nice!” Figulus whistled. “Where have you been putting it?”

“Somewhere safe. Somewhere secret from the Jews, and our side. Somewhere not a million miles from where we’re sitting, as it happens.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You’re almost on top of it.” Marius nodded towards the floor in the centre of the shrine. “Of course it’s taken a lot of hard work to haul it across from the temple.”

“The kind of work that draws unwanted attention.”

“Precisely.”

Figulus suddenly shivered. “Shit! It’s getting cold.”

“Isn’t it?” Marius grinned. “And it’ll get colder yet.”

“It was a neat idea to take the heads. I suppose you started the rumour about the demon?”

“Didn’t have to. Knew I could count on the more superstitious amongst us to do that for me. Worked like a dream. Apart from the sentries everyone’s been keeping well away from the inner court, leaving me to get on in peace.”

“Didn’t it bother you, killing your own men?”

“I’ve had a lifetime of killing. Got used to it. The first one was a little difficult, but they stood in the way of a fortune. It became easy . . . How did you find out?”

“Took a while,” Figulus admitted. “I never believed in the demon. But the problem was how any killer could take all his victims by surprise. One sentry might be a bit dopey and not detect the killer, but all twelve? Somehow, he managed to get them to stand still while he took a free swing at the back of their heads with a club . . . or maybe a centurion’s vine staff. Then, once they were down the killer could cut the head off easily enough. As you say, you’ve had practice. Thing is, the neck guard on a legionary helmet should prevent any blow to the back of the neck, yet the head you were good enough to leave behind yesterday had a bruise right on the hairline, above the ragged flesh where the head had been severed. Looked to me like someone had knocked the sentry down before removing the head. Incidentally, where are all the heads?”

Marius nodded towards the floor again.

“Good. We’ll need them back so the lads can have a proper funeral. Be a bit unseemly for them to enter the Underworld minus a head.”

“What makes you think you’re going to live to tell anyone about this?” Marius said evenly. His hand trembled a little as it rested on the pommel of his short sword.

“You’ll see,” Figulus replied, nodding towards the centurion’s sword. “You won’t need to use that.”

“No, I won’t,” said Marius. “Do go on.”

“As I was saying, how could it be that any sentry would willingly bare their neck to a killer? Unless they were ordered to do it. Ordered by a centurion. The sestertius dropped this afternoon while I was watching some men on the parade ground. Must have been awfully easy for you.”

“It was. I just turned up, told them to stand to attention, gave them a bollocking for not tying their laces properly and told them to sort it out. Once they were bent over looking down it was easier than taking sweet cakes from a baby. When they were all dealt with I could get on with it.”

“How did you know where to look?”

“That rabbi told me.”

“Thought you didn’t speak their tongue?”

“I don’t. But there are other ways of making people very eloquent indeed. The old man couldn’t take me to the treasure fast enough.”

“I see.” Figulus was suddenly very tired of playing this game. Tired, and finally very angry. Life in the legions was precarious. The chief centurion had served with thousands of men over the years. Most, he knew, were dead. Killed in action, killed in accidents, killed by disease. Only a few had been killed by their comrades, and even then it was mostly as a result of a drunken brawl. Those who served with the eagles knew the odds were against them. The prospect of death was far more certain than the chance of retirement to a small farm and the slow, fading serenity of old age. Living face to face with death, in its many guises, the men of the legions formed a peculiarly close bond with each other. Beneath the rough, hard exterior of the soldier burned a compassion and sentimentality that most civilians never guessed at, as the chief centurion well knew. Men who could kill with merciless ferocity one day, could act with great compassion and gentleness the following day. But valued above all other qualities was loyalty to your comrades. Which is what made Figulus sick to the pit of his stomach as he sat opposite Centurion Marius in the thin cold light of dawn.

“You’ll die for this, Marius. It’ll be painful, and you’ll deserve it.”

The centurion laughed, and Figulus smiled grimly as he
saw that the man was shivering. Marius laughed again, this time edged with a distinct sneer. “I deserve it, all right. But it’s not going to happen to me. Not for a while at least. You should be more worried about yourself, sir.”

“I presume you’re referring to this crap.” Figulus raised his nearly empty wineskin. “From the symptoms, I’d say you used hemlock, or something very similar.”

Marius stared at him. “You knew? You knew and you still drank it?”

“Yes, of course . . . After I’d switched the wineskins round.”

“Switched them?” Marius whispered. “When?”

“Before we checked on the sentries. Remember my bootlace? Must admit I was worried that you might try to do to me what you did to the others, but I was ready to react if you’d made a move. Unlike those poor bastards. Anyway, I had my suspicions about the wine. When you came clean about the killings I knew it had to be poisoned. I’m glad you had the chance to confess before you died.”

Marius glared at him, and there was no hiding the cold trembling that had taken charge of his limbs. There was a terrible apprehension in the centurion’s expression now, and his glance darted towards his hands, shaking uncontrollably as they clenched in his lap. He looked up.

“You bastard . . . You bastard. You’ll pay for this!”

Marius reached for his sword, and in the faint light his face looked ashen. His fingers wrapped round the handle and with a great effort he wrenched the blade free of its scabbard and the sword quavered as the point struggled to rise in the direction of the chief centurion. Figulus watched it all with an expression of cold contempt.