The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (63 page)

“Pass me down the lantern,” she called up.

It was Lepidus who leaned down and handed her the polished horn lantern, giving its opaque glow in the darkness.

Fidelma breathed out softly.

By its light she could see the brickwork and almost immediately she saw scratch marks on the brickwork: “IX Hispania”. She put the lantern down and began to tug at the first brick. It was loose and gave way with surprising ease, swinging a little so that she could remove it. The other long, thin bricks were removed with the same ease. A large aperture was soon opened. She peered into the darkness. Something flickered back in the lantern light. She reached forth a hand. It was metal, cold and wet.

She knew what it was before her exploring hand encompassed the lines of the object. She knew it was a bronze eagle.

“What is it?” called Deacon Lepidus above her sensing her discovery.

“Wait,” she instructed sharply.

Her exploring hand felt around the interior of the alcove. Water was seeping in, damp and dark. Obviously the alcove was not waterproof.

Then her exploring hand felt a piece of material. It too was wet from the seepage. She drew it forth. It was a piece of vellum. She could not make out the writing by the limited light of the lantern. So she turned and handed it upwards. It was only about a metre in length for it was lacking its wooden haft. She handed it up, ignoring the gasps and sounds from the Deacon Lepidus. Then she passed up the lantern to Wulfred before she twisted on her back and scrambled back into the room above.

A moment or so later she was able to see the fruits of her sojourn in the dank darkness below. Wulfred was holding the lantern high while Deacon Lepidus was almost dancing as he clutched the bronze eagle.

“The eagle! The eagle!” he cried delightedly.

A dark bronze eagle surrounded by laurel wreaths, its claws apparently clutching a branch. Then below the circle of laurel leaves surrounded a scroll on which the letters “SPQR” were engraved.
Senatus Populusque Romanus
. Lepidus tapped the letters with his forefinger. “The ultimate authority for any Roman legion. The Senate and People of Rome.”

“Let us not forget these finds have been made on Wulfred’s property,” she pointed out, as Lepidus seemed to forget the presence of the granary owner.

“I will come to an accommodation with Wulfred. A third silver coin should suffice for he has no use for these relics. Is that not so?”

The granary owner bowed his head.

“I am sure that the reverend sir is generous in rewarding me for my services,” he replied.

“My ancestor’s eagle has induced such generosity,’ Lepidus smiled.

“What of the vellum that was with it?” Fidelma asked.

Lepidus handed it to her.

She took it, carefully unrolling it. She examined the handwriting carefully and then the text.

“At least it is short,” Deacon Lepidus smiled.

“Indeed,” she agreed. “It simply says – ‘I, Cingetorix of the Cantiaci and
mathematicus
of Darovernum, place the eagle of the Ninth Hispania Legion, for safe keeping, in this place. My son is dead without issue. So should a younger hand find it, I entreat whoever you are, take the eagle to Rome and hand it to the emperor and tell him that the Legate Platonius Lepidus gave his life in its defence, having exhorted me to make the journey to Rome so that the legion might be raised again under this divine standard. I failed but I hope the words I have written will be testament to the honour and glory of the Ninth and to its commander, Platonius Lepidus, may the gods give him eternal rest.’ ”

Fidelma sighed deeply.

“Then there is no more to be said. You have what you wanted, deacon. Let us return to the abbey.”

Deacon Lepidus smiled appreciatively.

“I have what I want thanks to you, Sister Fidelma. You are witness to these events, which will ensure no one questions them. I shall go to the Archbishop Theodore and tell him what has transpired and that you may confirm my testimony.”

Fidelma grimaced.

“Immediately, I need to bathe after crawling around in that hypocaust. I will join you and the Archbishop later.”

*   *   *

Archbishop Theodore sat in his chair of office and was smiling.

“Well, Fidelma of Cashel, the Deacon Lepidus has much to say in praise of you.”

Fidelma had entered the archbishop’s chamber with Eadulf at her side. Deacon Lepidus was standing to one side, nodding happily.

“It seems that you have done a singular service by solving an ancient riddle for him and his family.”

“Not so, my lord,” replied Fidelma quietly.

“Come, Sister Fidelma, no undue modesty,” intervened Deacon Lepidus. “You have discovered the truth of what happened to my ancestor and to the fate of six thousand soldiers of Rome, the fate of the Ninth Hispania.”

“The truth?” Fidelma glanced towards him suddenly scornful. Her voice was sharp. “The truth is that Deacon Lepidus wished to perpetuate a hoax, a fraud, an untruth, in order to give himself and his family prestige. He sought to write a fabricated history, which would elevate him in society in Rome where his ambitions might know no bounds.”

“I don’t understand,” frowned Archbishop Theodore.

“Simple to understand once told,” replied Fidelma. “Deacon Lepidus faked an eagle which he claimed was the five-hundred-year-old regimental emblem of the Ninth Hispania Legion which disappeared in Britain at a time when his ancestor was supposed to be its legate or commanding officer. He wrote two accounts on vellum which explained what supposedly had happened to the legion and how the eagle could be found.”

“This is nonsense!” snapped Lepidus. “I will not stay here to be insulted.”

“Wait!” Archbishop Theodore said quietly as Lepidus turned to go. “You will stay until I give you leave to go.”

“And you will stay to hear the truth,” added Fidelma. “Do
you think I am a simpleton, that you could fool me? Your complicated plot merely needed me, my reputation, to confirm the veracity of your claim. You came with a vellum, pretending that you needed my help to solve the clues given in it. There were enough clues for an idiot to follow. It was to lead me to a house in this town and to the old hypocaust where I would find another vellum and the bronze eagle.”

“This is an insult to me, an insult to Rome,” spluttered the deacon.

Archbishop Theodore raised a hand.

“I will judge what insults Rome, Deacon Lepidus. Sister Fidelma, have you some evidence behind this accusation?”

Fidelma nodded.

“Firstly, I demand Lepidus produce the two pieces of vellum. The first is a text said to be written five hundred years ago . . .”

“I never said that!” snapped Lepidus triumphantly. “I said it was my copy from the original which resides in my family library in Rome.”

“So you did. And I asked you very clearly whether you had altered the text in any way or whether it was a clear copy of the original. True or false?”

He nodded reluctantly.

“What you neglected to take into account is that language changes over the centuries. In my own land we have our modern speech but we have the language that has been used in the inscriptions which we put up in the alphabet we called Ogham, named after Ogma, the old god of literacy. That language is called the Bérla Féine which many of our professional scribes cannot even understand today. I have seen Latin texts of ancient times, having read Tacitus and Caesar and others. This text of five hundred years ago is the Latin that is used today called vulgar or popular Latin.

“Next, I found it strange that Cingetorix, who is supposed
to have written this, is a
mathematicus
, an accountant employed by the legion, yet bearing a kingly name which Romans might have found an objection to in one so lowly in their eyes. Cingetorix is a name well known to those who read Caesar. This same Cingetorix is a Cantii but he calls himself a Cantiaci, which is the Roman form, just as he describes his native town as Darovernum in the form recorded by Ptolemy, as I recall. Had he been a native he would have recorded it as Duroverno. Both these things were strange to me but not conclusive of fraud as Cingetorix is writing in Latin.”

“That is exactly what I was about to point out,” intervened Deacon Lepidus. “All this is just foolish speculation to show how clever the woman is.”

“I was interested when I said that the abbey library had some old charts of the town and turned to get them,” went on Fidelma calmly. “You immediately said that the charts did not date to the time of your ancestor. How would you know unless you had first checked out everything? You seem to know much of the history of the town as well. When I was speculating on the destruction of buildings in the town since the coming of the Jutes, you were quick to point out that while buildings might be destroyed the foundations could remain. You emphasized that the text claimed the eagle was hidden in the hypocaust and thus in the foundations. So it proved . . . as if you knew it already. The house had long since vanished and a new granary stood on the site. But a small part of the villa, one room, stood and under it was the hypocaust. Amazing.”

“It is still speculation,” observed the Archbishop.

“Indeed. I have had some dealings with the people of this country. The owner of the granary did not seem perturbed at our demands to search under his property. Nor surprised by what we found there. Whereas some might have demanded
either the property or some high reward, the man Wulfred was quite happy for Lepidus to take eagle and vellum away on payment of a few coins. Not typical merchant’s behaviour.”

“Not typical but not proof of any wrong doing,” Archbishop Theodore pointed out.

“I concede that. When we found the alcove in which the eagle and the second vellum were, I was surprised that the interior was really damp. Not just damp but almost running with water. My hand was covered in water as if I had immersed it.”

“What does that prove?”

“While a metal object might have survived longer in those conditions, it would be very rusty. After all, bronze is not gold and is liable to deterioration in such conditions. The other item – the vellum with writing on it – that would hardly have lasted months, let alone centuries.” Fidelma turned to the deacon. “You were not that clever, Deacon Lepidus.”

The deacon was finally looking less than confident.

Brother Eadulf was smiling broadly.

“My lord Archbishop, if we could persuade Deacon Lepidus to allow us to have his precious eagle for an hour, there are smithies of quality in this town who would, I am sure, be able to estimate whether the bronze was cast over five centuries ago, or whether it was recently cast?”

“That is a good idea,” agreed the Archbishop Theodore.

Fidelma intervened with a quiet smile.

“I am sure that Deacon Lepidus would not wish to trouble us to do so. It is too time-consuming and wearisome. I am sure that on reflection that he would prefer to admit the truth. The truth of what he was attempting was plain from the very moment he presented me with the first vellum in the abbey library. The fact that it was a fake leaped from the text immediately that I saw it.”

Archbishop Theodore’s eyes had widened. Brother Eadulf smiled brightly.

“Do you mean that when you saw that the Latin was so modern, you realized that it could not have been written five centuries ago?”

Fidelma shook her head.

“When I read how Cingetorix talked about the position of his house, the forgery stood out like a sore thumb.”

Archbishop Theodore was shaking his head.

“But you found the hypocaust of an ancient Roman building exactly where he said it was. And there was the ruined defensive tower on the old city wall, which is marked number ‘eight’. Each tower bears a Roman numeral.”

“Surely, and his house was by the north east corner of a church being raised by Christians to Martin of Gaul, who we call the Blessed Martin of Tours,” agreed Fidelma.

“So? What is significant about that? There have been Christians and Christian communities in Britain for about a hundred years before the time that the Ninth Legion was said to have disappeared here?” pointed out Brother Eadulf.

“Indeed. But Martin of Tours who had such a profound effect on the Christian communities not only in Britain but in my own land of the five kingdoms of Éireann, was not born until a century and a half after the events supposedly recounted by Cingetorix. Deacon Lepidus had done some research but not well enough. I went along with him to see where he was leading me. In my own language, Archbishop, there is a saying
is fearrde a dhearcas bréug fiadhnuise
– a lie looks the better for having a witness. He wanted me to be witness to his lie, to his fraud. But even a clever man cannot be wise all the time.”