Arms of Nemesis

XX

'One disaster follows another!' Crassus stopped pacing long enough to stare at me with one eyebrow raised, as if holding me responsible for complicating his life. 'For once I think I shall actually be glad to get back to the relative calm and security of Rome. This place is accursed!'

'I agree, Marcus Crassus. But cursed by whom?' I glanced at the corpse of Dionysius, which lay sprawled on the library floor where Crassus had ordered his men to put it for want of a better place, simply to get it out of sight of the dinner guests. Eco stood peering down at the dead man's contorted face, apparently fascinated by the way that Dionysius's tongue refused to recede into his mouth.

Crassus pinched his nose and made a wave of dismissal. 'Take it away!' he shouted to one of his bodyguards.

'But where shall we put him, Marcus Crassus?'

'Anywhere! Find Mummius and ask him what to do – just get the body out of here! Now that I no longer have to listen to the fool, I certainly don't intend to put up with his stench.' He fixed his stare on me. 'Poison, Gordianus?'

'An obvious deduction, given the symptoms and circumstances.'

'Yet the rooms were full of other people eating. No one else was affected.'

'Because no one else drank from Dionysius's cup. He had a peculiar habit of drinking some herbal concoction before his midday meal and again with his dinner.'

Crassus blinked and shrugged. 'Yes, I remember hearing him extol the virtues of rue and silphium at other meals. Another of his irritating affectations.'

'And an ideal opportunity for anyone who might wish to poison him – a drink which he alone ingests, and always at a prescribed time and place. You must agree now, Marcus Crassus, that there is a murderer at large, here in this house. Quite likely it's the same person who murdered Lucius, since only last night Dionysius publicly pledged to expose that person. This could hardly have been the work of Alexandros or Zeno.'

'And why not? Zeno may be dead, but we still don't know where Alexandros is, or with whom he might be in contact. No doubt he has confederates in the household, among the kitchen slaves.'

'Yes, perhaps he does have friends in this house,' I said, but I was not thinking of slaves.

'Obviously, it was a mistake for me to allow any of the slaves to go on serving Gelina. As soon as the dinner is finished and the overnight guests are seen to their quarters, I shall have every slave rounded up and locked into the annexe. It would have to be done in the morning, anyway. Fabius!' He called to Faustus Fabius, who had been waiting in the hall, and issued instructions. Fabius nodded coolly and left the room without even looking at me.

I shook my head wearily. 'Why do you think it was one of the slaves who poisoned Dionysius, Marcus Crassus?'

'Who else had access to the kitchens, where no one would notice? I suppose that's where Dionysius kept his herbs.'

'All sorts of people have been in and out of the kitchens all day. People were half-starved from waiting for dinner; guests dropped by to filch food or sent slaves to do it for them long before the meal began; the kitchen slaves were rushing about and could hardly be expected to take note of everyone who stepped in their way. And you're mistaken, Crassus; Dionysius gathered his herbs himself and kept them in his room. He sent fresh batches down to the kitchens to be prepared each day; he usually bundled them up first thing in the morning and gave them to a kitchen slave, but today he didn't deliver them until after the funeral. That means the herbs could have been tampered with in Dionysius's room this morning, while everyone was busy preparing for the funeral.' 'How do you know all this?'

'Because while you and your men were gathering up Dionysius's body and bringing it here, I asked a few questions of the serving girl who brought him the drink tonight. She says that he brought the herbs to the kitchen after returning from the funeral. As usual, they were already mixed and crushed and gathered up in a scrap of cloth. Apparently Dionysius made quite a ritual of measuring and preparing them in advance. She herself added the watercress and grape leaves, then boiled and strained the concoction just before the meal.'

'She could have added the poison as well,' Crassus insisted. 'You must know something of poisons, Gordianus. What do you think it was?'

'I would guess aconitum.'

'Panther's-death?'

'Some people call it that. It's said to be palatable, so he might not have noticed it in his concoction. It's the fastest of poisons. The symptoms match – a burning in the tongue, choking, convulsions, vomiting, loosening of the bowels, death. But who,' I wondered aloud, 'would have known enough of such things to have obtained the poison and administered a proper dose?' I glanced at Eco, who pursed his lips. He had napped while I browsed through the various herbs and extracts in the house of Iaia at Cumae, but I had told him about them later.

Crassus stretched his shoulders and grimaced. 'I hate funerals. Even worse than funerals are funeral games. At least this will all be over tomorrow.'

'If only Dionysius had been able to tell us what he knew about the murder of Lucius,' I said, 'if indeed he knew anything at all. I should like to have a look in his rooms.'

'Certainly.' Crassus shrugged. His mind had already wandered to other matters.

I found the boy Meto in the atrium and instructed him to show us to the philosopher's chambers. We passed the dining rooms.

The meal had abruptly ended with the death of Dionysius and the withdrawal of the host and hostess, but many of the guests still lingered among the tables and couches. I paused and searched the crowd.

'Who are you looking for?' asked Meto.

'Iaia and her assistant Olympias.'

'The painter lady left already,' he said. 'Right after the philosopher started having his fit.' 'Left the room?'

'Left the house, for her own house at Cumae. I know, because she sent me to the stables to see that their horses were ready.'

'Too bad,' I said. 'I should very much like to talk with her.'

Meto led us farther up the hall and around a corner. 'Here it is,' he said, indicating the door to Dionysius's rooms.

The apartment consisted of two small rooms separated by a hanging curtain. In the outer room a round table was surrounded by chairs, set beside a window that faced the low wooded hills on the west. A clay urn was set atop a small table in one corner. When I lifted the lid I smelled the mingled scents of rue, silphium, and garlic. 'Dionysius's concoction. Poisoned or not, it should all be burned or emptied into the bay to be sure it harms no one else.'

The inner room, furnished with a Stoic's austerity, contained only a sleeping couch, a hanging lamp, and a large trunk.

'Not much to see,' I remarked to Eco, 'unless something has been hidden out of sight.' I started to open the trunk and found that it was clasped shut with a lock that required a key. 'We could break it open, I suppose. I doubt that Crassus would object, and we can ask the shade of Dionysius to forgive us. Indeed, it looks to me as if someone has already tried to force it open, and failed. See the scratches, and this scarred strip of metal, Eco? We shall need a strong, slender bar of steel to pry it open.'

'Why not use the key?' suggested Meto.

'Because we don't have it,' I said.

Meto smiled mischievously, then flattened himself on the floor, wriggled under the couch and emerged clutching a simple brass key in his tiny fist.

I threw up my hands. 'Meto, you are invaluable! Every household needs a slave like you.' He grinned and hovered over me as I stopped to fit the key into the lock. 'Indeed, Meto, I think you will grow up to be like those slaves in Plautus's plays, the ones who always know what's going on when their masters are too stupid or love-struck to see the truth.' Whoever had tried to force the lid had jammed the lock as well, so that I had to jiggle the key. 'Plautus's clever slaves always come in for a chiding from their jealous masters, but the world could never manage without them. Ah – there, it's open! What treasures did the philosopher find so valuable that he locked them safely away, I wonder?'

I pushed the lid up. Eco sucked in a breath. Meto started back.

'Blood!' he whispered.

'Yes,' I agreed, 'most assuredly, blood.' Atop the other scrolls that had been unrolled and laid flat within the trunk was a strip of parchment covered with tiny, crabbed writing, over which had been cast a great, spattered stain of blood.

'The missing documents?' I asked.

Back in the library, Crassus pored over the flattened sheets one by one. Finally he nodded. 'Yes, there are the records I was searching for, together with others I had no idea existed, full of all sorts of irregularities and cryptic references – expenditures and amounts received, itemized in some sort of secret code. I shall have to take them back to Rome with me after the funeral games. There's no way to make sense of it all without considerable time and study; perhaps my chief accountant can decode them.'

'I saw that the notation "A Friend" recurs several times, always connected to a sum of money, often a rather large sum. You don't suppose that could be a record of investments and disbursements relating to Lucius's silent partner?'

Crassus gave me a disgrunded look. 'What I really want to know is what these documents were doing in Dionysius's room.'

'I have a theory,' I said.

'I'm sure you do.'

'We know that Dionysius wanted to solve Lucius's murder, if only to impress you with his cleverness. Suppose he was ahead of us when it came to noticing the bloodstains on the statue that was used to kill Lucius, and had already concluded, even before I arrived, that Lucius was murdered in this room. Suppose also that he had some inkling of Lucius's shady dealings; after all, he lived in the house and might very well have noticed the flow of silver and arms, no matter how secretive Lucius might have been.' Crassus nodded. 'Go on.'

'Knowing these things, he must have purloined these documents himself, before you had a chance to find them, taking them from this room to his own where he could peruse them in secret and search for clues to the murderer's identity.'

'Perhaps. But how do you account for this?' He pointed to the bloodstained scroll.

'Lucius must have been looking at it when he was killed. It must have been open, here on this table.'

'And the murderer, who was so careful to drag Lucius's body into the atrium, left this document for Dionysius to find the next time he came into the library? It seems to me that the killer would have destroyed it rather than leave it for Dionysius to ferret away. This would indicate that the document has nothing to do with the murder.'

Crassus stared at me grimly, then slowly smiled when he saw that I had no answer. He shook his head and laughed softly. 'I will say this, Gordianus – you are tenacious! If it makes you feel better, I'll admit that I myself am not entirely satisfied with what we know of the circumstances surrounding Lucius's death. It does appear, from the evidence you found in the water and from these documents, that my dear, foolish, accursed cousin was involved in smuggling weapons to someone – yes, perhaps even to Spartacus. But that only weakens your case and strengthens mine.'

'I don't see it that way, Marcus Crassus.'

'Don't you? When word arrived that I was coming on short notice, Lucius panicked and tried to sever his contacts with the representatives of Spartacus, the customers who bought his stockpile of weapons. Seeing they would get no more out of Lucius, they set about taking their revenge on him. Who could these criminals, these agents of Spartacus, have been? Who else but Zeno and the Thracian Alexandros, who were nothing less than Spartacan spies in this household. Yes, I see it quite clearly now – hear me out, Gordianus!

'They confronted Lucius here in the library, in the dead of night. Zeno, who helped keep his master's books, produced these various documents exposing Lucius's perfidy, and threatened to betray him to me if he didn't continue to smuggle arms to Spartacus. But even blackmail would not sway Lucius; he had decided to sever his ties with the Spartacans, and he would not be intimidated. So Zeno and Alexandros murdered him, using the statue, just as you said. To make his death more public, they dragged his body into the atrium and began to scrape out the name of their master, Spartacus.

'Ah, but Dionysius was up late that night, mulling over whatever it is that second-rate philosophers mull over in the middle of the night. There was some scroll or other that he needed to fetch from Lucius's library. He must have made a noise, which disturbed the assassins and sent them flying, before they could finish carving the full name of their master. Dionysius enters the library and sees the bloody scroll. He goes into the atrium and finds the body. But instead of raising an alarm, he concocts a scheme to further his own career. He knows that I'll be arriving the next day; without Lucius, he has no patron, but if he could somehow attach himself to me, all would be to his benefit. He thinks he can impress me by providing a solution to the murder. He studies the bloodstained document, comprehends its import, and looks through the other scrolls for similarly incriminating evidence. He takes them all back to his room to decipher and piece together at his leisure.'

'But why didn't he tell you these things sooner?' I protested.

'Perhaps he planned to reveal all he knew at the funeral games tomorrow, thinking his eloquence could compete with the blood and drama in the arena. Or perhaps he was dissatisfied because there were still some scraps of evidence he couldn't quite piece together; after all, he wanted his presentation to me to be as impressive as possible. Or-'

Crassus's eyes lit up. 'Yes!' he cried. 'Dionysius was on the trail of Alexandros and wanted to deliver the slave to me in person – yes, that solves everything! After all, who else would have poisoned him, expect Alexandros, or another of the slaves acting to protect Alexandros? Dionysius must have discovered Alexandros's hiding place, and intended to deliver him publicly to me for the execution tomorrow, together with all the evidence he had uncovered.' Crassus shook his head ruefully. 'I'll admit it would have been quite a coup for the old buzzard – a chance for him to show off in front of everyone gathered for the games. I'd have had a hard time begrudging him a place in my retinue after that. So the buzzard turned out to be a fox!' 'A dead fox,' I said dully.

'Yes, and silent forever. Too bad he can't tell me where to find Alexandros. I should dearly love to have that scoundrel in my hands tomorrow. I'd lash him to a cross and burn him alive for the crowd's amusement.' His eyes glinted cruelly, and he was suddenly angry. 'Do you see now, Gordianus, how you've wasted my time and your own, chasing after this illusion that the slaves were innocent? You should have been setting your cleverness to catching Alexandros for me and bringing him to justice, but instead you've let the fiend commit another murder in front of your very eyes!'

He began to pace furiously. 'You're a sentimental fool, Gordianus. I've met your type before, always trying to intercede between a slave and his just deserts, turning squeamish at the ugliness that's sometimes required to maintain Roman law and order. Well, you've done your best to stand in the way of justice in this case, and, by Jupiter, you've failed. Call yourself the Finder, indeed!'

He began to shout. 'We have your ineptitude to thank for Dionysius's death and for the fact that the murderer Alexandros is still at large. Get out! I have no use for such incompetence! When I get back to Rome I shall make you the laughing stock of the city. See if anyone ever comes seeking the services of the so-called Finder again!'

'Marcus Crassus-'

'Out!' In his fury he seized the documents that littered the table, crushed them in his fists and threw them at me. They missed, but one of them struck Eco in the face. 'And don't show yourself to me again unless you can bring me the slave Alexandros in chains, ready to be crucified for his crimes!'

'The man is more unsure of himself than ever,' I whispered to Eco as we walked towards our room. 'The strain of the funeral, the bloodshed that looms tomorrow – he's become overwrought…'

Suddenly I realized that my face was hot and my heart was beating fast. My mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. Was it Marcus Crassus I was talking about, or was it myself?

I took a few steps and stopped. Eco looked up at me quizzically and touched my sleeve, asking what we should do next. I bit my hp, suddenly confused and disoriented. Eco drew his brows together in an expression of concern. I couldn't meet his eyes.

What was there left to do? I had been in constant motion for days, always able to glimpse the next step, and now I suddenly found myself adrift. Perhaps Crassus was right, and my defence of the slaves had been a sentimental folly all along. Even if he was wrong, my time was almost up and I had nothing to offer him – except for the fact that I knew, or thought I knew, who had poisoned Dionysius, just as I thought I knew where the slave Alexandros was hiding. If I could do nothing else, at least I might discover the truth, for my own satisfaction.

In our room I produced the two daggers I had brought from Rome and handed one to Eco. He looked at me, wide-eyed. 'Things may come to a crisis very suddenly,' I said. 'I think it best that we arm ourselves. The time has come to confront certain persons with this.' I pulled out the blood-stained cloak from where I had hidden it among our things. I rolled it up tightly and tucked it under my arm. 'We should bring cloaks for ourselves, as well. The night is likely to be chilly. Now, to the stables!'

We walked quickly down the hall, down the stairway, and through the atrium. We stepped through the front doorway into the courtyard. The sun had just begun to sink behind the low hills to the west.

We found Meto in the stables, attending to the horses for the night. I told him to prepare mounts for Eco and me.

'But it's getting dark,' he protested.

'It will get even darker before I find my way back.'

We were mounted and ready to begin, pausing in front of the stables, when Faustus Fabius and an armed cordon of guards passed through the courtyard. Between the ranks of soldiers, in single file, walked the last of the household slaves on their way to the annexe.

They walked silently, meekly. Some had their heads bowed, weeping. Others looked about with wide, frightened eyes. Among them I saw Apollonius, who walked with his eyes straight ahead, his jaw tightly clenched.

It seemed to me that the villa was being drained of its lifeblood. All those who gave the great house its animation, who kept it in motion from dawn to dusk, were being emptied from its corridors – the barbers and cooks, the stokers of fires and openers of doors, the servitors and attendants.

'You there, boy!' yelled Fabius.

Meto shrank back against my mount, clutching at my leg. His hands trembled.

My mouth went dry. 'The boy is with me, Faustus Fabius. I'm on an errand for Crassus, and I need him.'

Faustus Fabius waved for the contingent to continue to the annexe and stepped towards us. 'I hardly think that's the case, Gordianus.' He gave me one of his aloof, patrician smiles. 'The story I hear is that you and Marcus have parted ways for good, and he'd just as soon see your head on a platter as on your shoulders. I doubt you should even be allowed to take his horses from the stables. Where are you headed, anyway – just in case Crassus should ask.'

'Cumae.'

'Is it as bad as that, Gordianus, that you need to ask the Sibyl for help, and with night falling? Or does your son want a last look at the beautiful Olympias?' When I made no answer, he shrugged. An odd expression crossed his face, and I realized that a bit of the bloodstained cloak, folded and concealed beneath my own cloak, had slipped into view. I moved to cover it with my elbow.

'At any rate, the boy comes with me,' Fabius said.

He grabbed Meto's shoulder, but the child refused to let go of my leg. Fabius pulled harder and Meto began to squeal. Slaves and guards turned their faces towards us. Eco grew agitated; his mount began to neigh and stamp.

I whispered through my teeth, 'Have mercy on the boy, Faustus Fabius! Let him come with me – I'll leave him with Iaia in Cumae. Crassus will never know!'

Fabius relaxed his grip. Meto, shivering, released my leg and reached up to wipe his eyes. Fabius smiled thinly.

'The gods will thank you, Faustus Fabius,' I whispered. I reached down to scoop the child onto the horse's back, but Fabius swiftly pulled him away and stepped back, gripping him tightly.

Fabius shook his head. 'The slave belongs to Crassus,' he said. He turned and pushed Meto, stumbling and looking desperately back over his shoulder, toward the other slaves.

I watched dumbly until the last guard disappeared around the corner of the stables. Twilight covered the earth and the first stars glimmered above. At last I spurred my mount and set out. To any god who might happen to be listening, I said a prayer that morning would never come.