All Roads Lead to Murder Page 2

  More troublesome is Regulus’ sideline. He employs a network of spies who feed him information which he turns into sometimes ruinous charges against wealthy people. An accusation of treason is his most profitable ploy. He has been doing this for over twenty years, since the days of the emperor Nero, and has built up a vast fortune in the process, due to our government’s policy of rewarding an informer with a quarter of whatever is confiscated from a convicted person. He debases himself even further by engaging in what aristocratic Romans sneer at as legacy-hunting—courting wealthy childless people in order to get oneself written into their wills.

  From what I had heard and observed in Rome, Marcellus was an unusually adept pupil. Regulus doted on him more like a son than a student, and Marcellus picked up Regulus’ rapacious inclinations and thieving techniques as readily as I hope any future son of mine will someday follow my example to a better end.

  “We’re almost there,” Tacitus said. I turned my attention back to the scenery.

  The highway broadened and a pedestrian pathway appeared alongside it, sure signs that we were approaching a city. Then we rounded Mt. Mastusia and could see the acropolis, on the east side of Smyrna, crowned by its marble temple of Artemis, and the tallest buildings of the lower town, their white-washed stucco walls and red tile roofs glistening in the late afternoon sun. Soon we passed among the tombs of the necropolis, that depressing introduction to every Greek and Roman town. Workmen were putting the finishing touches on a new tomb.

  “It’s a lovely city,” I observed. “What do you know about it?” Tacitus has an encyclopedic memory, not unlike my uncle.

  “It was built by Alexander the Great,” he said. “Actually, rebuilt would be more accurate. The original city sat on the north side of the bay. That site was destroyed by the Lydians some six hundred years ago. A couple of centuries later Alexander re-established Smyrna on the south side of the bay, right at its head. The range of mountains behind it is anchored by Mt. Mastusia. The genius of Alexander’s relocation of the city is that it now blocks the passage of any military force. Anyone traveling north or south along this coast must go through Smyrna or over the mountains. The town itself is laid out on a grid pattern, like a Roman army camp.”

  I leaned out of the wagon for a better view. “I often wish we could level Rome and start over again on such a logical basis. It’s ironic that our capital is a hopeless jumble of winding streets—like the channels that termites eat in a piece of wood—when so many of our provincial cities are so beautifully and symmetrically arranged.”

  “Of course,” Tacitus reminded me, “most of ‘our’ provincial cities—at least in the East—were built by Alexander or his successors. Perhaps if he had rebuilt Rome . . . but he would have had to conquer it first. And we certainly couldn’t have that.”

  * * * *

  We found a decent inn on the south side of town, one which boasted a large stable and the luxury of individual rooms, not just sleeping space in a large common room. The two men whom I took to be Jews said they would be staying with someone in the city and asked the innkeeper for directions to the house of Apelles.

  “Are you friends of his?” the innkeeper asked.

  “We have mutual friends,” the older of the two replied. “We bear letters of introduction.”

  “I’m sorry to inform you,” the innkeeper said, “that the noble Apelles died yesterday. He was much loved in Smyrna. In fact, he was one of our boularchs for this month.”

  “Oh, my,” the younger man said. “Under that circumstance we can hardly impose on the family for lodging. Is there room for us here?”

  The innkeeper nodded. “By all means, if you don’t mind sharing a room.”

  “That’s all right,” the younger man said.

  The older man smiled. “Yes. It’s certainly better than hearing that there’s no room in the inn.”

  The younger man glared at him as though he were betraying some private joke.

  The inn’s rooms proved small but tolerable for overnight lodging. The walls were whitewashed, though devoid of decoration. The straw in the mattresses was clean, and so were the chamberpots—both good signs. The innkeeper, a short, stout ruddy-cheeked man with a fringe of red and gray hair around his bald head, seemed a decent sort. He was named Androcles, which means ‘noble man’ in Greek. And he had a young wife and young children.

  Having settled us in our rooms, Androcles directed us to the nearest bath house, just a block away.

  “Do men and women still bathe separately here?” Tacitus asked.

  “Yes,” Androcles replied. “I’ve heard that in Rome the emperor has introduced the innovation of both sexes bathing together.” He grinned in anticipation.

  “That’s becoming the common practice,” Tacitus said. “And it’s being copied in larger cities around the empire.”

  “Smyrna isn’t one of them,” Androcles said, “for good or ill.”

  I was glad to hear that. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sight of women’s bodies. My problem is that I appreciate the sight too much and can’t always control the manifestation of my enjoyment. Strutting around in that state in the baths—raising a tent under one’s towel, as they say—makes a man the object of Priapus jokes and other low forms of humor.

  Tacitus and I posted a couple of our slaves to guard our belongings at the inn. Taking two others with us, we stopped to buy some perfumed oil on our way to the bath house.

  “Are you sure you’ve got your strigl?” Tacitus asked me mockingly as we left the shop and resumed our walk.

  “Please stop teasing me about that.”

  “Well, I don’t see why you can’t just use the scrapers in the public baths. Everybody else does.”

  “That’s precisely the point. Everybody else does. And they don’t just bathe with them. People scratch themselves everywhere with them as well as scraping off the oil. I’ll bring my own with me, thank you.”

  This bath house rated among the nicer ones we had seen on this trip. The wall mosaics, depicting sea creatures and nymphs, were standard fare but well done. The floor mosaics, mostly geometric patterns, were fresh and unchipped. We left my slave in the dressing room to watch our clothes. Tacitus’ slave accompanied us into the bath itself. The man gives massages that beggar description. After a long day of bouncing around in a wagon, he is worth every sestertius that Tacitus paid for him. That he’s deaf adds to his value, for it means he can’t overhear our conversations. His previous owner punctured his ears for that very reason.

  Because of our late arrival in town the bath was almost deserted. Only two men were soaking in the pool by the time we reached that stage. One was a bald fellow with a snowy white fringe of hair and a matching beard. The other was much younger and had classical Greek features, large eyes and pouty lips. Did they speak Latin? Although Latin is the official language of the empire, it is rarely spoken east of the Adriatic Sea. Educated Greeks sometimes learn Latin, but all educated Romans know Greek. We regard it not as a foreign language, but as our other language.

  Tacitus and I didn’t dare talk about anything meaningful, in whatever language. Every city in the empire has its own Regulus, some bloated maggot waiting to fatten himself even more on the carcass of another betrayal. We confined ourselves to small talk.

  “It’s remarkable,” I said, “how a year’s post in a province takes up a good portion of two years. You have to get your affairs in order before leaving, then travel for at least a month to get there by the assigned date. You can’t leave until your term ends, and it’s another month and more of travel to get home. Then it takes several months to unscramble the mess your affairs have fallen into.”

  “But you do get to see a large piece of the empire,” Tacitus pointed out. “We’ll be passing near the site of Troy in a few days. Just think, Homer, Achilles, doomed Hector!”

  “That just means we’ll be approaching the Hellespont,” I said with a shudder. “And to cross that I have to get on another boat. ‘Doome
d’ is the right word.”

  The younger bather spoke up from across the pool. “Perhaps you could lash some ships together and construct a bridge, the way Xerxes did when he invaded Greece. He even put trees and dirt on it to fool the horses, as I recall.”

  So the fellow did speak Latin. Before I could form a witty response, Marcellus and Cornutus strolled into the bath, each accompanied by several slaves. Both men exuded an aura of largeness that made me feel even smaller and slighter than I am. Cornutus, the older by a decade, was the more muscular. His chest reminded me of a wall. His light brown hair and green eyes suggested Gallic ancestry. Marcellus personified the best and worst of Rome. He bore the classic Roman features, with dark hair and eyes and an aquiline nose. But his waist was already acquiring a ring of flab, just as Rome was growing flabby, feeding off its provinces.

  “Well, fellow-travelers and now fellow bathers,” Marcellus said with too much joviality as he eased himself into the water. Cornutus sat on the edge of the pool and dangled his legs in the water before lowering himself into it with a weary sigh. The bald fellow and his younger friend nodded in greeting but said nothing. I wanted to warn Marcellus and Cornutus that the strangers could speak Latin, but I couldn’t think of any way to do it without being obvious.

  No one mentioned the incident during our lunch stop. I wondered if Cornutus had already ‘dealt with’ the girl.

  “Let’s have some wine,” Marcellus said. He sounded like one of those people who try to conceal their over-fondness for drink by forcing everyone else to drink with them. He sent one of his servants to the front of the bath house to purchase wine. The man returned, followed by a servant girl carrying six goblets on a tray. She handed one to Cornutus, one to Marcellus, and then offered the tray to us to select one. Marcellus motioned for her to take the last two cups to the Greek men on the other side of the pool.

  “The dust of travel is difficult to wash away,” Cornutus said, accepting the cup which the slave offered him. “What puts you on the road?” he asked Marcellus.

  “I’m checking into investments on behalf of my friend, Marcus Aquilius Regulus. If things are handled properly, Regulus stands to make a great deal of money.”

  “And your commission won’t exactly be small,” Tacitus said drily.

  “Is it unjust to be paid for doing a valuable service?” Marcellus replied. “Especially in a delicate matter where timing is so essential.” He looked to Cornutus for support, which he received in the form of a raised wine goblet.

  “And you’re returning to Rome after service in Syria?” Marcellus asked Cornutus.

  “I was due to serve another year,” Cornutus said in a robust voice that would have had a kind of reverberation to it even without the effect of the high ceiling in the bath, “but I’ve been informed that my father’s health is failing.”

  “May we find him alive and well upon our return,” I said, meaning it sincerely as one who had already lost two fathers. Tacitus added a hearty second to my toast.

  “May the gods grant it,” Marcellus said solemnly, pouring out a bit of his wine as an offering. The rest of us followed his lead.

  * * * *

  By the time we returned to the inn, Androcles and his wife were serving dinner to our party, other guests, and a crowd of locals. A buxom servant girl immediately attracted Tacitus’ attention. The tables and benches had been placed closer together than earlier in the afternoon, to clear a space in the center for entertainment.

  I suppose I groaned too loudly when a plate of greasy meat was set in front of us, the sort of thing one usually gets in public establishments, smothered with sauces to disguise how long it had taken to get from the market to the table.

  “Too much for your delicate palate?” Tacitus asked with a trace of mockery.

  “I find this sort of thing indigestible,” I said, pushing the plate away and reaching for bread. “I suppose my uncle spoiled me in that regard. Meals in his house were lighter, fresher. And I hate to eat sitting on a bench. Why can’t we find room to recline? It’s so much more healthful.”

  “Why can’t you just relax and stop being such a prig? We have convivial company. We don’t have to sleep in our wagon tonight. And it appears we’re going to have some entertainment.”

  “Oh, that will be the perfect culmination to the day,” I said. I detest the noisy entertainments that so often accompany Roman (and Greek) dinners. My uncle spoiled me in that regard, too, I suppose. Or perhaps he just encouraged a natural inclination. Dinner in his house was always a calm affair, almost Socratic, with a trained slave reading a book, followed by conversation on the topic of the reading. If music was played, it was always of the most soothing kind, an aid to digestion.

  The servant girl slapped a pitcher of cheap wine on the table. Tacitus grabbed her hand and kissed it before she could get away. She gave him a broad smile and a wink. Two musicians settled themselves in a corner and struck up a seductive tune on a flute and a tambourine. I braced myself for some sort of lascivious dance. I did not expect the innkeeper’s twelve-year-old daughter to perform it.

  As the throbbing of the music grew more insistent she threw her head back and waggled her skinny hips suggestively. Her gauzy costume made no secret of her budding womanhood. Androcles watched with a gleam on his pasty face, circulating through the crowd and nudging one man, then winking at another. This ‘noble man’ was auctioning his child off for the night. I couldn’t stand to watch any longer, so I grabbed some bread and cheese and a cup of wine and went upstairs to my room.

  * * * *

  I was awakened just after daybreak by a loud wailing outside my door. In my first moment of waking I thought I was back at Vesuvius, during the eruption, with people running around in panic, screaming uncontrollably. Rushing out of my room, I found Androcles, wringing his hands in despair and moving his feet as though willing them to run but unable to make them obey.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, grabbing his arm.

  “He’s dead!” the innkeeper gasped and pointed to the open door of Cornutus’ room, directly across from mine. “Lucius Cornutus is dead!”

  “Dead? By the gods! What are you saying?”

  “His heart!” He clutched his hands to his own heart.

  I couldn’t believe this fellow had the medical knowledge to recognize that Cornutus had some problem with his heart. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “What about his heart?”

  After several false starts, he managed to sputter out, “He doesn’t . . . have one anymore.”

  II

  “HE DOESN’T HAVE A HEART?” Tacitus said groggily when I rousted him out of bed. The servant girl with him didn’t even bother to cover her breasts. Something to be said for earthiness, I suppose. I was just glad I didn’t find him with a boy. “You mean somebody . . . ?”

  “Yes, somebody cut his heart out, as if he were a sacrificial ram.”

  “You’ve seen the body?”

  “Just a quick look. There’s a great, gaping hole going up under his ribcage. All the stuff in his guts is exposed to view, sort of hanging out.”

  At this point the girl bolted from the room, one hand over her mouth and the other clutching her gown. Even Tacitus, a devotee of the bloody spectacles in the amphitheater, was starting to look a little green. How odd. No Roman town considers itself ‘civilized’ until it builds a structure to stage these horrible shows. The sight of the blood throws even normally rational people into a frenzy. And yet my straightforward description of Cornutus’ slaughtered body—which he hadn’t even seen—was upsetting Tacitus.

  “I’ve posted two of my slaves to guard the door until we can get the authorities here. Get up! Get dressed!” I urged Tacitus. “I need help keeping this situation under control.”

  “Why are you trying to keep it under control?” he asked. “You’re not a magistrate in this province.”

  “In all the confusion no one seems to know quite what to do, so I just started giving orders.”

&n
bsp; “You have a tendency to do that,” Tacitus muttered.

  I ignored him. I had vast responsibilities thrust on me at age seventeen when my uncle died. By now, taking charge of situations had become a habit.

  “I’m not allowing anyone to go into the room,” I said. “Nothing is to be touched. No one is to leave the inn. Cornutus was a Roman citizen, so we need to see that his murder is investigated according to Roman law.”

  “What about the local magistrates?” Tacitus asked. “Shouldn’t they handle it?”

  “They’re being notified.”

  “Didn’t the innkeeper tell us yesterday that one of them just died?”

  “Yes. But there’s a committee of them. They rotate in and out of service, two per month. I’m sure the other one will be here shortly. I’ve sent a message to the governor. But it’ll take at least two days for that to get to Pergamum and two more for the governor or someone on his staff to get back here.”

  “What are they going to do in the meanwhile?” Tacitus asked. “In this warm weather Cornutus will raise a mighty stink in four days.”

  “I don’t think they are going to do much of anything. Everybody I’ve spoken to this morning is too frightened of what Rome might do to them.”

  “With good reason,” Tacitus said. I nodded in agreement. Nothing could bring the full wrath of Rome down on a provincial city faster than the murder of a Roman citizen within its walls. We regard ourselves as sacrosanct when among foreigners. ‘Arrogant bastards,’ as the witch put it.

  “I think it’s up to us to conduct some kind of investigation,” I said, “before we have to burn the body.”