Dark Omens

TWENTY-FOUR

Inside it was already dim, of course, despite the candlelight, but the trader signalled to his slave that he should shut the door. He walked along the central aisle, and I thought that he was going to lead me to the house, when suddenly he turned round as if confronting me.

‘Now!’ he said acerbically. ‘I am a busy man.’ He gestured to the empty spaces where the now-loaded cargo had been stored. ‘What is this all about? I thought you came here wanting hyssop, but it seems that I was wrong. First there is an inquisition about who said what and when — though I can’t see that it matters very much. And then this sudden interest in rotting venison. What is the point of that? I could understand if Alfredus had wanted to inspect that sack — he has a possible financial interest in my affairs — but I can’t see what on earth it has to do with you. I can assure you that the contents were quite inedible. Not that I can prove it, either way. It is all at the bottom of the river now.’

I looked him coolly in the eye, trying to sound confident of what I said. ‘I’m sure a grappling hook could be employed to fetch it up again. My patron has enough authority for that. And don’t I remember there were two sacks anyway?’ I gestured to the empty storage place where they had lain. ‘Your steward will have a record of the number, I suppose?’

For the first time Lucius looked a little less than confident, but Vesperion took a chalk slate from a slot beside the wall and made a great business of consulting it. ‘Two sacks of venison, that’s quite right, citizen. The other must have been disposed of earlier today when I was busy somewhere else.’ He rubbed out the item with his sleeve to show that it had gone. ‘But that it is all in order; I know that it was planned. My master’s right — they had begun to smell and were becoming an embarrassment.’

‘I am quite sure they were. But then I don’t believe that it was venison at all.’ I turned back to his master. ‘Perhaps you did learn how to preserve things packed in snow from the northern traders, as you claim, but no one keeps a valuable meat until it rots — especially at a time when food is very scarce and there would be a considerable profit to be made. I don’t know why I didn’t question it before.’

Lucius gave a would-be casual shrug. ‘So what are you insinuating, citizen?’

I was about to answer, but he saw my face and all at once he seemed to change his mind. He motioned to the slave. ‘Vesperion, you should not be listening to this talk. You can go and collect together all the record scrolls — the ones that I was showing to Alfredus Allius. I promised this citizen that he could borrow them. And check if there is any hyssop left in stock.’ Then he added, as the slave looked hesitatingly at the slate, ‘Take that with you — what are you waiting for? Close the folding door behind you and stay there until I call!’

Vesperion sighed and did as he was told.

When he was safely out of earshot Lucius turned to me. His tone was sombre now. ‘Well, citizen, I gather that — for reasons of your own — you’ve come to have suspicions of Adonisius. What, exactly, do you suppose that he has done?’

I shook my head. ‘It isn’t Adonisius I’m suspicious of — it’s you. And don’t dissimulate. I’m serious when I talk of bringing up that sack — and you know as well as I do what we shall find in it. A decomposing body, isn’t that the truth? Or half a body, anyway. The lower half of Genialis, if I am any judge. And by your face, I see that I am right.’

He was about to make some protest but I held up my hand. ‘When we do retrieve it, and I’m proved to be correct, you will do yourself more favours if you’ve confessed the truth. You know what Marcus’s inquisitors can do. So, why not save yourself the torment and just tell me everything? Including how you killed him, as I suppose you did — though I must admit that it surprises me. I had not seen you as a murderer.’

He sat down abruptly on a pile of crates. All his bluff bravado had deserted him. ‘I didn’t murder him — not in the way you understand the word. It would be more accurate to say I made him kill himself.’ He looked up at me with strangely empty eyes. ‘Citizen, I swear he brought it on himself. I was convinced he’d murdered Ulpius, and it’s proved I was correct. If he had been innocent, he would not have died.’

A small piece of mosaic tumbled into place. ‘The wine!’ I said, remembering the events of yesterday. ‘The jug your servant Pistis brought in yesterday. You declared that it was “rubbish” and made him throw it out. But it wasn’t rubbish, was it? It was poisonous — and Genialis had given it to Ulpius, you said. You made him drink from it himself at some stage, I suppose?’

He nodded. ‘It was laced with poppy juice as well, though there was obviously some kind of poison in it too. Something slow acting — so when poor Ulpius got aboard the ship that fateful night, he was half-drugged and already staggering. I was always convinced that there’d been something of the kind, and that’s what made him tumble overboard — Ulpius was far too experienced to have done so otherwise.’

‘It was said that he was drunk.’

‘I always doubted that. I’ve never known him take more than a cup or two of wine, and it was always much-watered even then. Especially if he planned to travel, as he sometimes did, to bargain for a cargo further east. There was not even any storm that night. So when this amphora came into my hands, I decided to invite Genialis to drink a bit himself — to prove my theory, or disprove it once and for all.’

I sat down on a small dividing wall beside a pile of little casks which smelt of perfume spice. ‘How did you come to have it, anyway? I should have thought that Genialis would have disposed at once of any incriminating evidence like that.’

He shook his head. ‘He couldn’t do so, at the time. He sent it as a present to Ulpius, at his house — he made sure it was a night when Silvia did not dine, and of course he was not there to share in it himself — and afterwards the servants simply put it all away and nobody suspected there was anything amiss. I understand he asked about it once or twice, once Ulpius was dead — but he couldn’t draw too much attention to it by insisting it was found. Though, since he had control of what was in the house by then, he could make sure it wasn’t served to anyone by accident. One of the many reasons he took Silvia away. However …’

I saw where this was leading. ‘When they were packing up the contents of the house, it came to light?’ I said.

‘You are percipient, citizen!’ Lucius said. ‘He made sure that he was watching when they loaded up the wine, and when that particular amphora was produced, he seized on it at once and ordered Adonisius to smuggle it outside. He gave instructions to pour away the remainder of the wine, then break up the amphora and leave it on the midden heap — even saying that he’d check there afterwards. He pretended this was simply to prevent the servants stealing wine and getting drunk, since he didn’t want to carry an opened amphora all the way to Dorn. But Adonisius had suspicions that there was something more.’ He paused and looked at me.

‘Go on,’ I told him.

‘So the Syrian spoke to Silvia — of whom he had naturally grown fond — and she saw the implications instantly. She told him to break up the amphora and put it on the heap — so Genialis would find it when he checked — but first he was to put the wine into a different pot and find an opportunity to bring it here to me.’

‘On the promise of freedom, when his master died?’ I said, to show that I was following.

‘Exactly. And we were extra lucky there. Genialis assigned Adonisius to her, in front of witnesses, before he left Bernadus’s country house that day, so now she has a perfect right to free him if she likes, without the need to wait for any legal settlement. She would have tried to do so anyway, I think, even if her guardian had survived the wine — but of course, it was as lethal as we thought. He didn’t want to drink it, but I’d tied his hands and I was holding a blade against his throat …’ He shrugged. ‘It only proved what I’d suspected all along. He killed his half-brother to seize his assets and his wife, so it was a kind of justice — I think you must agree.’

‘Justified revenge?’ I murmured, thoughtfully. ‘That plea might be accepted as mitigation by the courts. But why not take the matter to them in any case? If a man kills his brother, it means exile at the least. That would have solved your problem, without any risk to you.’

He gave me a wry grin. ‘You forget that — unlike you — I am not a citizen. Genialis was a wealthy and influential man. You can imagine what chance I would have had. Besides, until I’d made him swallow what was in the flask I had no proof of anything at all.’ He gave that rueful smile again. ‘Though as soon as I told Genialis what it was, I knew from his face that my suspicions were confirmed. Not that there were any other witnesses to that.’

‘So you lured Genialis out to meet you — where? And when? How did you contrive that you should be alone?’

‘I sent a message back with Adonisius when he brought the jug. That was in the morning of New Year’s Day, while his master was busy with a Kalends visitor and the last of the packing was being loaded on to the cart.’

‘A verbal message?’

‘That would not have worked. I wrote it on a little scrap of bark paper. Adonisius was not to give it to his master then, but to conceal it for a day or two and then produce it as if it had just arrived. I did not sign or seal the note of course — I affected to be one of his gambling creditors. I said that I had information which could ruin Lucius and if he brought ten golden pieces I’d tell him what it was. I knew he’d fall for that. He was not to bring a slave with him — if there was a witness there would be no deal — and he was to burn the message, which he didn’t do of course. I found it on him when I took the purse. I’ve destroyed it now or I could show you what it said. He was to meet me, on the third day before the Agonalia — there is a little wood yard on a corner along the northern road …’

I nodded. ‘I think I know the place. Go on.’

‘About midday, I told him. That was the tricky part. There was a risk that there would be other people on the road at noon. Of course, I thought he would be riding back from Dorn, but as it happened they didn’t get that far. However, with the snow there was no one much about, and that was not a problem when it came to it. The cold was quite a help in fact — it meant I wore a hood and it was not till we’d both dismounted that he realized it was me.’

‘And you attacked him out there on the public road?’

‘Hardly an attack!’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘I’m younger than he is and much fitter too. I simply twisted his arms behind his back, tied him behind his horse, and compelled him down the lane to where the forest starts. There I drew a blade, produced the phial of wine, and the rest I think you know.’ He got up with sudden passion. ‘The man was gambler, a murderer and a cheat, about to force poor Silvia into a loveless match — and incidentally he was going to ruin me. In my place, citizen, what would you have done?’

I stood up too and murmured thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d have cut his corpse in two. Far less take half of it and hide it in the snow, and then pretend that it had been there all along. I presume you were also responsible for that?’

He made a little gesture of despair. ‘None of that had been the plan at all. I was simply going to let him drink the wine and die and leave him lying in the forest where he fell. He rather surprised me by staggering around for what seemed ages before it took effect. I should have guessed, I suppose, from what had happened to Ulpius earlier — but I began to think I hadn’t given him enough. I’d only taken what would fit into a little flask, which I could carry hanging from my belt. But in the end the poison did its work. The trouble was, there was deep snow about and he’d left a lot of footprints while he was stumbling around — and there were my tracks and the marks of both the horses too. I couldn’t leave him there — there was so little traffic on the road that anyone could trace where we had been — and the ground was far too hard to bury anything.’

I remembered how I’d followed tracks like those myself today. ‘So you put him on your horse and brought him home again?’

He shook his head. ‘I did not dare do that. I had no means of covering him up. I went back to the corner where the wood yard was — they supply the warehouse sometimes, and I’d planned to call in with an order anyway, as a reason for being in the area if anyone had noticed I was there. I know they have sacks of sawdust which they sell to inns and I thought I might be able to obtain an empty one. But the owners were not there — they have an ancient mother further down the lane and I suppose that in the snow they’d gone to care for her. So I looked around to see if I could find a hessian bag — but as I did so a rider came along and, of all things, stopped to talk to me. In fact he scared me half to death by asking if I’d seen a purple-striper on the road, riding to Glevum on his own without a slave.’

‘Great gods!’ I murmured. ‘The messenger from Dorn.’

‘Exactly, citizen,’ Lucius said. ‘Though of course I only learned that afterwards. He’d called at the villa and had been told that Genialis had just left. But to his surprise he hadn’t caught him up, and the sentry at Glevum reported that he hadn’t passed the gate. So he was riding back again the way he’d come, asking anyone he met, in case he’d missed him somewhere on the road. Fortunately he took me for the owner of the yard.’

‘And of course you told him you’d seen nobody at all.’

He made a face at this. ‘In fact I said that I’d been to and fro all day, collecting wood from down the lane, hoping that would account for all the tracks. But mercifully he wasn’t interested in that, he simply thanked me briefly and rode on again. But it was doubly important that I moved the body now — if it was later found in that vicinity he’d certainly remember that he’d seen me there.’

‘So you went on looking and found yourself a sack?’

He nodded glumly. ‘Two sacks. Genialis was too big to fit into a single one. I had to use an axe I borrowed from the yard and chop him into two.’

‘You did it very cleanly — I observed that at the time — though I suppose that for you, it wasn’t difficult. I’d forgotten that you’d been a woodman in your youth.’

He took the comment as a kind of compliment. ‘I tried to do it as neatly as I could. It wasn’t desecration I was aiming at. I even moved his clothes to stop them getting stained, but he’d been dead some time by then, and lying in the snow, so he didn’t bleed as much as I had feared. I covered up the bloodstains as much as possible, by scraping snow and leaves together with the axe — it even helped to clean the blade before I took it back. Then I cut his horse’s bridle and let it wander free and brought my grisly burden home with me.’

‘Pretending it was venison, if anyone enquired?’

He almost smiled. ‘It did look rather similar — and it’s a commodity we’ve handled once or twice. I didn’t mean to take it into store. I thought that I’d be able to drop it in the dock, but I found I couldn’t do it straight away because the slaves were always there, stirring the ice to keep it from the quay. So I brought the sacks in here and packed them round with snow, then told Vesperion that it was venison. He didn’t question it — he just wrote it in the records as he always did. I tell you, citizen, most of what happened wasn’t planned at all. I just did the first thing that came into my head.’

I nodded. ‘And you might have got away with it,’ I said. ‘If you hadn’t tried to be too clever at the very last and put half the body out there to be found.’

That rueful smile again. ‘I agree it was unfortunate. Especially when Adonisius accidentally betrayed the fact that we’d discussed the details, before I was supposed to know the corpse was found. But when you told me what had happened to the priest …’

‘You thought that you could replicate the circumstance, and I would think that there was some connection between the two events?’

‘Of course.’ He made a noise which was a bitter ghost of his old hearty laugh. ‘After all, I had already cut the wretched thing in half. And nothing legal could be sorted out, till Genialis was officially recognized as dead. It almost seemed a kind of augury.’

‘So you sent Adonisius out to hide it in the snow, today, after you had sent your other slave to me?’

A nod. ‘He had a good horse, so he could carry it, and I knew he would get there much sooner than the searchers in the cart. And since Alfredus Allius was to be here with me, I would have a-’ Lucius began, but he got no further. There was a sudden hammering at the door and a flustered Allius put his head round it.

‘Citizen Libertus, your patron has arrived. And he has brought the lady Silvia to see Lucius as well. What should I do with them? And what about that slave that they’re holding for you on the ship? Silvia says that he belongs to her. Do you still want him, to talk about that sack, or should I do as she requests and let him go?’

I glanced at Lucius. ‘I think I have all the information that I need — at least for the present,’ I said carefully. ‘In the meantime, you may let the Syrian go. Assure the lady that the slave is free to leave with her, but I may wish to talk to him another time. In the meantime, tell my patron that we are on our way.’

Alfredus nodded and went away again.

Lucius was breathing rather heavily. He put his hand into his belt and in the dimness of the lamps, for a moment I thought that he was going to draw a knife, but it was just the rabbit mittens that he’d lent me earlier. ‘Have these, citizen, with my thanks,’ he said. ‘I am more grateful than I can express. I could not bear to think of Silvia in the dock and poor Adonisius only did what I had told him to. I’m happy to take all responsibility myself — I hope you will tell them that I confessed the truth, though I know I can expect the cruellest punishment. What is it that you plan to do with me?’

I looked at the offering he was holding out. He was not an evil man at heart, I thought — his attempt to shield his two accomplices had rather touched my heart. And the penalty for carving up a citizen would be a dreadful one — however much the victim had deserved his fate. All the same …

‘You have some gold, I think?’ I asked him urgently. ‘Genialis had some in his purse. Ten gold pieces, I believe you said?’

He looked surprised and troubled. ‘You want me to give you that? I thought you might have seen the offer of money as a bribe. I do have them somewhere — there was no point in leaving gold pieces on the corpse — and Silvia brought the rest to Glevum when she came. I was going to see that Alfredus Allius got them back, somehow.’

‘So the search for the money at the villa was a sham?’

He shook his head. ‘Well not exactly that. The money had already got to me by then, and we could hardly explain how I had come by it. There was more than forty aureii in all. It isn’t really mine. But if it’s the price of silence …?’ He looked as if I’d rather disappointed him. ‘Though perhaps — all things considered — it would be best if you simply hand me over to the authorities. I can’t afford to go on paying you for years, as you’d no doubt require.’

I shook my head. ‘You mistake my motives, trader. I was thinking, rather, that since you had some gold, then you could start again elsewhere. If, for instance, you chose to sail to Gaul tonight, accompanying that cargo that they were loading when I came? I’m sure the captain would agree to carry you — and your wife and servant — if you arranged to pay.’

He was staring at me in perplexity. ‘My wife and serv- Oh, I see! You mean that you’d say nothing until we’d got away?’

‘You have satisfied my curiosity and I applaud your honesty — but I have my ethics, too, and in the end I’ll have to tell my patron what I know. But not necessarily for a day or two. Genialis was an evil man and you are a kindly one. It serves no purpose to have you put in jail — or worse,’ I told him patiently.

I thought he was about to fling himself before my feet, but in the end he simply seized my hand. ‘You think she would come with me?’ His face was bright with hope. ‘Do you know, citizen, I believe she would! She was going to come here after Genialis died, even if it meant forfeiting her status and estate, and by and by she would become my wife in common law — but then your patron came and overruled the scheme …’ He stopped abruptly, looking crestfallen. ‘Ah! Your patron! I had forgotten him. He is now her legal guardian, of course. He would never permit her to come away with me. And even if she wanted to defy him and elope, it would not be easy to escape his vigilance: every moment when he isn’t there himself, she’s got that nurse to keep an eye on her.’

I gave an inward sigh. I had not meant to get involved in this. But in for a quadrans, in for a denarius! I dropped one eyelid in a knowing wink. ‘Give those lovely mittens to His Excellence,’ I said. ‘Tell him they’re a thank-you present for his wife, and leave the rest to me.’

So saying, I led the way outside, blinking in the sudden brightness of the day.