Two For The Lions (17 page)

XXXI

I WAS BILIOUS all night. It led to a severe outbreak of prejudice. Helena told me that houses which present visitors with a sparkling surface generally have old gravy crusting the cauldrons. The more refined the soiree, the more certain to be rats under the cooking bench. Well, something had polluted my guts.

"Poison!"

"Oh Marcus, don't exaggerate."

"The ostrich, the Sacred Geese of Juno--and now me."

"You have a bad cold, and you've eaten strange food tonight."

"In circumstances where indigestion was inevitable."

I climbed back into bed, where Helena patiently held me in her arms, stroking my hot forehead. "I found our hosts curiously likable," she told me, trying not to yawn too much. "So, are you going to tell me what made you so irascible?"

"I was rude?"

"You're an informer."

"You mean I was very rude?"

"Perhaps a little tetchy and suspicious." She was laughing.

"That's because the only people who invite us out are even lower in society--and even they only do it when they want something."

"Saturninus was pretty obvious," Helena agreed. "Probing him in return was like trying to poke a hole in an iron bar with a dandelion stem."

"I did pry something out of him." I told Helena my theory about the death of Leonidas having taken place at Urtica's house.

She listened in silence, then remained still for some moments, testing what I had said for herself and considering the implications. "Was it Saturninus himself who speared the lion?"

"I would say not. He has always admitted he took Rumex with him--besides, the anonymous message to Anacrites specifically blamed Rumex."

"Even if Rumex killed the poor beast, Saturninus must take responsibility" He organised the party. Who do you think sent the message?"

"It could have been Calliopus, but I still believe he wants this hushed up For one thing, it gives him a hold over Saturninus--and he wants to keep it to himself too. It's good blackmail material. The pet praetor will be in big trouble if it ever gets out that he had a gladiator performing in his house--not to mention causing the death of a Circus man-eater, who was perhaps stolen at the time."

"But you said Calliopus knew of the escapade in advance."

"Yes, but he wasn't intended to know."

Exhausted, I lay prone while Helena pondered. "If the story gets out, Calliopus will disclaim all connection." Her breath tickled my forehead" Wonderful. "He can't have been directly involved--the lion's death did genuinely disconcert both Calliopus and his keeper."

"Yes; neither Calliopus nor Buxus had been aware that Leonidas was dead until he was found the next morning in his cage."

"So we can rule out Calliopus also being at this unsavoury patty at the ex-praetor's house. Marcus, it was odd though that the keeper failed to hear the lion being taken away and returned. Maybe Buxus had been bribed by Saturninus to let him remove an animal--Draco, supposedly. But instead, maybe Buxus was loyal to Calliopus, told him the plan, and they worked the switch to cause trouble. . ."

I pretended to drift off to sleep, to end the discussion. I did not want Helena to work around to my own fear: that if Saturninus thought he had told me too much, he would decide I was dangerous. I did not know the form if a lanista took out a contract on a human enemy--but I had seen what he could do to somebody's ostrich I did not want to be found with my head dangling and my legs all limp.

Next morning Helena kept me at home again. Later, she took me to the baths. Glaucus my trainer found the sight of me with my strict female escort a huge joke.

"Can't you blow your own nose now? And Jupiter, Falco, where have you been? I heard you were working with the Circus crowd. I've been expecting you to rush in here claiming to be undercover on some vitally important mission, and demanding to be brought up to scratch to play at gladiators--"

"Glaucus, you know I'm too sensible"" Actually, going undercover in that way might be a good idea--though I could think of somebody I would rather send to the arena: my dear partner Anacrites.

Glaucus used a laugh I didn't care for. "There's an even more unpleasant rumour that you're really weazling for the Censors, Falco, but I don't want to hear your excuse about that."

I pottered off to see his barber, a sleek fellow who took off two days' growth with an expression as if he were cleaning a drain. His expertise with a Spanish razor was the envy of the Forum, and the fee Glaucus charged for him matched his skill. Helena calmly paid. The barber took her money as if he was mortally offended to see a man fall into feminine clutches. He had a way of smiling that was not much better than his master's laugh. I did my best to sneeze all over him.

We went home I started shivering, and volunteered to go to bed again. I slept soundly for hours, then awoke much refreshed. The baby was asleep or absorbed in her own little world. The dog was just asleep. When Helena came to peek at me, she saw me awake and snuggled up beside me to be sociable.

It was a quiet afternoon, too cold outside for much active street life. Most of the time neither voices nor hoofbeats sounded down in Fountain Court, and our bedroom had an interior aspect so noises from further away could hardly penetrate. The basket-weaver in the shop downstairs had already locked up for a few weeks and gone to the country to enjoy Saturnalia; not that Ennianus or his customers ever made much disturbance.

Lying in bed was soothing, though I had had enough sleep. I did not yet want to start thinking about work, although I wanted to think about something. These few snatched moments with Helena posed a suitable challenge. Pretty soon I had her giggling as I set out to demonstrate that the parts of me that were not befuddled by my cold were even livelier than usual.

Winter does have some advantages.

An hour later I was soundly asleep again, when the world began waking up. The light was fading into dusk; all the Aventine bad people were banging their doors and leaving home to cause trouble. Young boys who ought to have been going home came kicking balls against apartment walls with all the force of seige engines. Dogs barked. Pans rattled on griddles. From overcrowded homes all around us the familiar scent of very old cooking oil, infused with burnt fragments of garlic, began to waft skywards.

Our baby started crying as if she thought she had been abandoned for ever. I stirred. Helena left me and went to Julia, just as a visitor arrived. For a few moments Helena managed to fend him off, but then she opened the door a crack and put round her head. She had one hand pushing in a comb to try and right her tangled hairstyle.

"Marcus, if you feel up to it, I think you'll want to come and see Anacrites."

She knew that even when healthy I never felt up to that confrontation. The restrained way she spoke told me there was something up. Still luxuriating in drowsiness after our lovemaking, I mouthed
you're beautiful!
, to enjoy the sensation of being suggestive out of sight of Anacrites.

Helena was keeping him out, as if the rumpled scene of our passion ought to remain private. I nodded to show I would dress and join them.

Helena then said quietly: "Anacrites has brought some news. Rumex, the gladiator, has been found dead."

XXXII

WE HAD LOST the best part of a day.

"Olympus!" complained Anacrites, as I dragged him in my wake past the Temple of Ceres on my way down from the Aventine. "What's special about the death of a gladiator, Falco?"

"Don't pretend you can't see it. Why bother to tell me at all, if you think it's a natural occurrence? Jupiter" Rumex was fighting fit, in every sense. I met him. He was as solid as a frontier rampart--"

"Maybe he caught your cold."

"Rumex would soon scare off a little cold" I was ready to ignore it myself now. My windpipe was on fire, but I was holding back the cough even though I was agitated and hurrying Helena had flung my Gallic coat over me, and topped it off with a hat. I would live--unlike the darling of the arena crowds. "this fever isn't fatal, Anacrites--however much you would like to think so in my case."

"Don't be unfair--" He tripped on a kerbstone, which made me smile with satisfaction; he had stubbed his toe so hard it would go black and shed the nail. I jumped down the middle stairs three at a time and let him follow as best he could,

At the barracks a large crowd had gathered. A tall pair of perfectly matched cypress trees in handsome stone urns had been set either side of the gate. There, a solemn porter was receiving small commemorative tributes with apparently sincere thanks, moving on with discreet efficiency from one donor to the next. The crowd was mainly composed of women, on the whole silent though occasionally emitting thin cries of distress.

While I lay ill, Anacrites had already begun auditing the Saturninus empire; as we walked, he had told me that our work would be taking place not here, but at the office of an untrustworthily helpful accountant whose office was on the other side of town. That had not surprised me. Saturninus knew all the subtle tricks of being difficult. However, our audit gave us a useful right of entry to any of his property. When we ordered them to let us into the barracks, they did.

Inside the gate, out of sight from the street, the mourners' tributes were being stripped open on a table, the valuables removed methodically and the trash dumped in a large bin for later disposal.

I led Anacrites directly around the various courtyards to the cell where Rumex used to live. The minders who had dallied with Maia and Helena were missing. In their place, guarding a heavily locked door, were a couple of beef-ox colleagues of the dead man.

"Sorry about this--" I adopted an expression of faint annoyance as if we were all being inconvenienced. "I dare say it's nothing to do with us, but when something like this happens while we are conducting a Census enquiry we have to check the scene--"

That was a complete lie. The slab-chested fellows in leather loincloths were unused to facing devious officials. In fact they were heavily trained to do just what they were told. They sent a lad to see the man who had possession of the key. He thought it was Saturninus asking for him, so he came along meekly. There were a few doubtful glances among the various personnel, but it seemed easiest to let us do what we wanted, then to lock up again quickly and pretend nothing had occurred.

So, by a mixture of our bluff and their inefficiency, we gained entry to the dead man's quarters. It was easy, even after a murder. I did wonder if last night somebody else had used similar tactics.

When we walked in, to our surprise, Rumex was still there.

In this situation there was more chance than usual that Anacrites and I could make our partnership work" We were both professionals. We both recognised an emergency. We had to act as one. If Saturninus were on the premises, he might any minute hear of our arrival and race to intervene. So I glanced at Anacrites, then we moved in together. We needed to scour the place rapidly for clues, taking notes, each serving as witness to what the other found. We had one chance to do this. There could be no mistakes.

We had entered not a tiny cell with a straw pallet, which was all most fighters ever acquired, but a tall room about ten feet square. Its walls, once plain, had been painted in a rich dark red then completely covered with graffiti of arena scenes. Stickmen with swords chased each other, stabbed each other, fell down and stared up in mute appeal at each other. Lively fights were depicted all over the middle ground and upper frieze. Thracians hung their heads and died above the dado; myrmillons were being dragged out lifeless below it while Rhadamanthus, King of the Underworld, supervised in his beaked mask, accompanied by Hermes with his snaky staff.

Rumex had owned a lot of stuff. Armour and weapons would be kept by his master, but he had been laden with gifts. A vibrant Egyptian carpet, which most people would have preserved as a treasured wall-hanging, lay rucked by casual usage on the floor Apart from the bed, the furniture comprised huge chests, one or two standing open to reveal mounds of tunics, cloaks, and furnishings, all presumably donated by admirers On a tripod a smaller coffer revealed a jumble of gold chains, armlets and collars. Goblets of exquisite workmanship stood on burnished trays alongside others that were in execrable taste, though stuck with costly gems. Since Saturninus would have extracted the greater percentage of what was dotingly presented to his hero, the original tally must have been enormous. (An appealing prospect for us two as auditors, since it had not been represented in the lanista's accounts.)

The two gladiator guards and the keyman were peering in after us, starting to grow nervous. Anacrites fetched out a note tablet; despite his bored manner, his stylus moved at speed. He was listing the stuff I nodded and went to the bed, like a curious tourist.

Rumex lay on his back as if he were asleep. He was wearing only a single white tunic, probably an undergarment. One arm, that nearest to me, was slightly bent, as if he might have been leaning up on his elbow but had fallen back as he died. His great head faced towards me as I stood at his bedside. Beneath him was the kind of coverlet under which imperial princesses snuggle up to their lovers. Its rich nap must be tickling the back of his thick neck.

It was the neck that transfixed my attention. Around it lay a heavy gold chain; but not the one with his name on that I had seen him wearing before. The new one was pulled tight across the throat, but at the back of the head it looked looped up, where it would have caught in the hair had the gladiator not been so closely shaven. The chain lying oddly was intriguing enough. Either somebody had tried to remove it--or Rumex had been pulling it on over his head.

That was not what made me draw so sharp a breath. A short trail of congealed blood disfigured the luxurious bedcover beneath the dead man's cheek. It ran from a small wound where Rumex had been stabbed through the throat.

XXXIII

I CROOKED AN eyebrow to Anacrites. He came across and I heard him groan under his breath" With one forefinger he tried gently to pull loose the gold chain, but it held fast under the weight of Rumex" head.

Each of us must have been thinking this through: he was relaxed in bed when he was stabbed; it was quite unexpected. Something was going on with this chain, but the killer chose not to steal the thing. Perhaps horror overcame him. Perhaps he was disturbed at the scene. Perhaps the cost of the chain had seemed a good investment and it was readily abandoned once the gladiator was dead.

The knife was missing. From the size of the wound, it must have a small, slim blade. A handknife, easily concealed. In a city where it was forbidden to go armed, a bauble you could excuse to the vigiles as your domestic fruitknife. A little thing that might even belong to a woman--though whoever struck that blow had used masculine speed, surprise and force. Also perhaps experience.

Anacrites stepped back; so did I. We had made a space that let the two gladiators see the corpse. From their grim exclamations it was the first time.

They knew death. They must have seen their colleagues killed in the ring. Even so, this deceptive scene, with Rumex so obviously at his ease at the moment of his killing, had deeply affected them. At heart they were men. Horrified, pitying, undemonstrative yet stricken. Just like us.

My own mouth felt dry and sour.
The same old dreary depression at life being wasted for some barely credible motive and probably by some lowlife who just thought he could get away with it . . " The same anger and indignation. . . Then the same questions to ask: Who saw him last? How did he spend his last evening? Who were his associates?

When had I said that? Over Leonidas.

I played it as carefully as possible. "Poor fellow. Do you know who first discovered him?"

One of the gladiators was still speechless. The other forced himself to croak, "His minders this morning." The man had no neck, with a broad, ruddy, wide-chinned face that in other situations would have been naturally cheerful. He looked overweight, his chest in a fold and his arms chubbier than was ideal. I put him down as a retired survivor, running to seed.

"What's happened to the minders?"

"The boss took them away somewhere."

"Saturninus himself extracted them?"

"Yes."

Well that had a neat symmetry. First Calliopus had lost his lion and tried to disguise the circumstances. Now Saturninus had lost his best fighter and it looked as if a cover up had been applied swiftly here too.

"Was he angry that they let someone get to Rumex?" The two new guards exchanged a glance and I had a feeling the old minders had been given a heavy thrashing" It would serve a double purpose: punishment--and making sure they kept their mouth, shut.

"I heard about it in the Forum," Anacrites murmured, staring at the corpse. He managed to sound like anyone stunned by shocking news. A good spy, lacking character himself; he could blend into the background like fine mist blurring the contours of a Celtic glen. "Everyone was talking about it, though nobody understood what had happened. All sorts of stories were starting to circulate--if anyone asks us, what is supposed to be put out?"

"Died in his sleep," said the first guard. I smiled wryly.

Typical of Saturninus. Effectively true--yet it gave away nothing.

"You must have been friends with Rumex. Who do you think did it?" I asked. With a creak of leather, the guard shrugged his big shoulders helplessly. "Do we know if he had visitors last night?"

"Rumex was always having visitors. Nobody kept count."

"Women, presumably. Don't his minders know who was here?"

The two gladiators exchanged mirthless laughs. I could not tell whether they were commenting on the number of female admirers their dead friend entertained in his room, the uselessness of the clique of slaves surrounding him, or some much more mysterious point. It was clear they did not intend to enlighten me.

"Didn't Saturninus try to find out if any women called on Rumex last night?"

Again that sense of hidden mirth. "The boss knows better than to ask about Rumex and his women," I was told in an oblique tone.

Anacrites pulled a fresh cover from one of the overflowing chests and spread it over the corpse with a show of respect. Just before he covered the face, he asked, "Was this a new chain?"

"Never seen it before."

Anacrites asked why the body was still lying here, and we heard that the undertaker was expected later that night. There certainly would be a more than decent funeral, paid for by the gladiators' own burial club, to which Rumex had in his lifetime contributed generously. Nobody knew why Saturninus had locked up the body instead of simply sending for funeral arrangers earlier.

I wondered whether he had more urgent business than attending to the fom1alities. I asked where he was. Gone home, very upset, apparently" At least that gave us a breathing space.

"Tell me," I mused, "what do you know about the other night? When Rumex had to kill that lion?" Snatched glances passed between his two friends. "It can't matter any more," I said.

"The boss won't like us talking."

"I won't tell him."

"He has a way of finding out."

"All right; I won't push you. But whatever occurred, it seems to have done for Rumex!"

At that they looked anxiously towards the door.

Anacrites smoothly closed it.

In a low, rapid voice the first gladiator said, "It was that magistrate. He kept nagging the boss to do him a show at his house. Saturninus offered to take our leopardess, but he was set on a lion."

"Saturninus doesn't own one?" prompted Anacrites.

"His were all used and killed in the last Games; he's waiting for new stock. He tried to get one a few months ago, but Calliopus sneaked off to Puteoli and pipped him."

"Draco?" I asked.

"Right."

"I've seen Draco. He's a handsome beast with great spirit - and I know other people who would have liked to be the purchaser." Thalia had told me she fancied him for her troupe. "sp Saturninus lost out, but he bribed a keeper at Calliopus' menagerie to let him borrow Draco for a night? Do you know about that?"

"Our folks went there and thought they'd picked him up all right. Afterwards we reckoned it was the wrong lion, of course. But they only saw one; the other must have been hidden away."

"What was Saturninus planning to do with him?"

"A show with the lion tethered in a harness No real blood; only noise and drama. Not as frightening as it would look. Our keepers would control the lion, while Rumex dressed up in his gear and pretended to fight him.

Just a display so the magistrate could get his girlfriend all hotted up."

"The totsy? Scilla, isn't it? She's juicy stuff? A lively girl?"

"She's a tough one," our informant agreed. His companion laughed lewdly.

"I follow--so what went wrong that night at Urtica's house? Did they hold the display as planned?"

"Never got started. Our keepers opened up the cage and were meaning to get the harness round the lion--"

"Sounds a tricky manoeuvre."

"They do it all the time. They use a piece of meat as bait."

"Sooner them than me. What if the lion or leopard decides today's choice from the cats' caupona will be human arm?"

"We end up with a one-handed keeper," grinned the second man, the one who hardly spoke. The cultured, sensitive one.

"Nice! And was Rumex used to fighting animals? He wasn't a bestiarius, surely? I thought he norn1alIy played a Samnite and was conventionally paired?"

"Right. He didn't want the job, and that's a fact. The boss leant on him."

"How?"

"Who knows?" Once again, a shifty look passed between the two gladiators. They knew how. The old phrase
"nothing to do with us, legate"
went unsaid, but its implied customary
addition "we could tell you things, all right!"
hung in the air. They shared an unspoken pact that they would not tell me. I would put the whole conversation at risk by pushing it.

"We'll have to ask your boss then," Anacrites said. They deliberately made no comment, as if daring us'

"Let's go back to the ex-praetor's house," I suggested.

"The lion's cage was opened up, and then what?"

"The keepers wanted to prepare everything quietly but the damned magistrate came on the scene, wetting himself with excitement" He grabbed one of those straw dummies they use to excite the beasts' He started to wave it about. The lion roared and crashed out past the keepers. It was terrible. He leapt straight at Urtica."

Anacrites gulped. "Dear gods. Was he hurt?"

The two men said nothing. He must have been. I could find out. That afternoon when I had tried to see him at his Pincian mansion, perhaps Pomponius Urtica had been groaning indoors, recovering from a mauling. At least I knew now what had befallen the torn straw man I had discovered in the workshops at the Calliopus barracks.

"It must have been an awful scene," Anacrites joined in again.

"Urtica was down, his girlfriend was screaming, none of our team could handle it."

"Rumex just grabbed a spear and did his best?"

His two friends were silent. Their attitudes seemed different. One had said his piece while the other listened with a slightly sardonic expression. It could be that the second man disapproved of him telling me the tale. Or it could be something else. He might just possibly disagree with the story as it had just been told.

"Then they had to decide what to do with the dead lion?" suggested Anacrites. Again, nothing from them.

"Well," I countered, "you can't just shove a Circus lion behind a bush in Caesar's Gardens and hope the men who trim the lawns will just collect him in their clippings cart."

"So they put him back where he had come from?"

"Obvious thing to do."

Anacrites and I were doing the talking because the friends of Rumex were apparently no longer prepared to give" I pushed for one last query: "What caused the trouble originally between Saturninus and Calliopus?"

It seemed a neutral subject, a change of topic, and they agreed to speak again. "I heard it was an old row about a tally in the
sparsio
," the first one told the other. The
sparsio
was the free-for-all when vouchers for prizes and even gifts in kind were hurled at the arena crowds as a bounty.

"Back in the old days." Even the second became less reticent. Only slightly, however.

"Nero stirred up trouble on purpose," I prompted. "He liked to watch the public fighting over the tickets' There was as much blood and broken bones up in the terraces as down on the sand."

"Calliopus and Saturninus had been partners, hadn't they?" Anacrites said. "So were they watching the Games together? Then did they fall out over a voucher in the scrum?"

"Saturninus grabbed the voucher first, but Calliopus trod on him and snatched it--"

The lottery had always caused havoc around the arena" Nero had enjoyed stirring up those wonderful human talents: greed, hatred and misery. People used to place huge bets too, gambling on the chance of winning a prize, only to lose everything if they failed to grab a ticket. When the tickets were thrown by attendants or launched from the spitting voucher machine, chaos ensued. Holding on to a ticket was the first lottery; getting one for a worthwhile prize was the second game of chance. You could win three fleas, ten gourds--or a fully laden sailing ship. The only drawback was that if you bagged the day's big prize you were compelled to meet the Emperor.

"What was the controversial win?" I asked.

"The special."

"In cash?"

"Better""

"The galleon?"

"The villa."

"Oho! That must be how Calliopus acquired his desirable cliff-top gem at Surrentum."

"No wonder they fell out then," said Anacrites. "Saturninus must have been very unhappy at losing that." Ever the master of the banal. He and I knew exactly what that villa at Surrentum was now worth. Losing it, Saturninus had been screwed. It lent an extra dimension to Euphrasia's sarcastic interest in why Calliopus had sent his own wife Artemisia there now.

"They've been feuding ever since," said the chubby gladiator. "They hate each other's guts'

"A lesson to all who work in partnership," I murmured piously, aiming to worry Anacrites.

Unaware of the undercurrents, our informant went on: "We reckon they would kill one another, if they had the chance."

I smiled at Anacrites. That was going too far. I would never kill him. Not even though we both knew he had once tried to arrange a fatal accident for me.

We were partners now. Absolutely pals.

It was time to leave.

As we all stirred ourselves, Anacrites suddenly bent forwards as if on an impulse (though nothing he ever did was without some sly calculation). He drew back the coverlet from Rumex" face and gazed down somberly once more. Trying to prize out one last relevation, he was pretending to feel some ghastly fascination with the stiffening corpse.

Drama had never been my style. I walked quietly from the room.

Anacrites rejoined me without comment, followed by the dead man's two friends, whom I sensed would now guard him in an extremely subdued spirit. Whatever murky business was stirring in the world of the arena,

Rumex was free of all pressure and all danger now. That might not be so for his colleagues.

We said our goodbyes, Anacrites and I showing decent regret. The two gladiators saluted us with dignity. Only when I glanced back as we walked off down the corridor did I realise that the scene had affected them much more than we had understood. The big overweight one was leaning on the wall covering his eyes, obviously weeping.

The other had turned away, green in the face, helplessly throwing up.

They were trained to accept bloody massacre in the ring. But for a man to be slain all unprepared in his bed was, for them, a deeply disturbing event.

It had churned me up too. Added to the anger I had first felt over Leonidas I felt a grim determination to expose whatever sordid business had now caused another death.