Graveyard of the Hesperides

XIX

At last we could mull this over together in private.

Tiberius and I were silent for a time. He and I never needed to be constantly in conversation. One of the first things I ever heard about him was that he was a listener, a man who made up his mind before pronouncing. This is rare. Most give a rash opinion before they hear the full facts. Usually they get it wrong.

We paced around the yard together, gazing down at each skeleton as we reassessed these secret burials. The layout, depth, consistency of them. The oddities. The disarticulated leg. The missing head.

“The men are all of a type,” Faustus said at last. “Not tall, stocky build.”

When I got down low to look closely at number four, with his severed lower leg, I spotted that his other, the one still attached, had a markedly deformed bone. “Look here, Tiberius. This man suffered an accident in his lifetime. His remaining leg had been badly crushed. He had a horrible fracture, as if something disastrously heavy fell on him-a millstone, a huge piece of masonry-bones were broken, a compound fracture that probably stuck through the flesh. He must have been lucky to survive. But it had all mended long before he died.”

Tiberius took it further: “He would have had a very conspicuous, awkward gait. This man stood out. Everybody would have known him. I wonder … Albia, if we think Rufia’s head was taken away to prevent possible identification, did somebody also decide to remove the damaged leg for the same reason?”

“They cut off the wrong one!” I exclaimed.

Tiberius let himself grin, then grew more serious. “Could be understandable. We say they were well-organized, yet killing six people has unimaginable horrors. There must have been huge tension by the point of the burials. A mistake was made. Let’s face it, even surgeons have been known to carry out wrong amputations. Someone realized the error, but they couldn’t face hacking off a second leg, so they cursed, gave up, and tossed the wrong one back into the trench after the body, hoping for the best…”

“Gruesome.” While I still crouched beside the limping man, I swung around to make comparisons with his next neighbor. “Same wear on their teeth. Same diet.”

Tiberius followed my reasoning at once. “Same origin?”

“Likely, though it’s nothing exceptional. Same habits, certainly. Gritty bread. Fruit. Acid wine followed by acidic belching.”

“You make them sound lovable fellows!”

“Who all drank in bars,” I reminded him, with a smile.

“But you are not going so far as to identify their home village?” He was teasing me.

“Could even be Rome. My point is, they all hung around together, leading the same lifestyle. In the same trade, I bet. And somehow they must have made a common enemy.”

“But was it Old Thales?” Tiberius now frowned. “Did Thales himself, helped by his staff, attack these five men? If so, why?”

“Had the five men somehow killed Rufia, so Thales ordered punishment killings?”

“Surely we have no reason to believe Rufia meant that much to him?” I made a note to start asking people just what she did mean to the landlord, while Tiberius continued suggesting alternatives: “Or did a completely separate group have a set-to with these fellows, while Thales either kept out of the way or stood on the sidelines pleading with all parties to stop fighting in his bar?”

I snorted mildly. “I don’t think he was that kind of landlord. But his bar was well-ordered. We know he had the no-nonsense Rufia to stop trouble-she sounds as if she would have kicked him into action if mayhem started.”

“Ah, that kind of woman!” murmured Tiberius gently, as if to no one in particular.

I shot him a cool glance. “If he didn’t himself arrange the attack, who could the antagonists be-people that Thales was scared to interfere with and too frightened of even to report their crime afterward?”

“Soldiers?” suggested Tiberius.

“Serving soldiers would have been missed. Absconding from the army is one crime that does get taken seriously. Especially if it happened in Rome, which is awash with units who could look for deserters.”

“So the victims shared some trade, physical though not extremely hard by the look of their bones? Thales either was so scared of the killers, or so closely in league with them, he allowed them to fill his yard with corpses. He must have agreed to these burials. The killers must have relied on him keeping the graves secret, especially making sure afterward that nobody dug up anything accidentally.”

“Now he’s dead, the killers have lost their security. Do you think they know he’s gone?”

Tiberius lifted his shoulders, saying, “If they are anywhere local, they must find out now. They will hear that we have the bodies, so the authorities will be looking for perpetrators.”

I chortled. “If they hear the vigiles came down here to reconnoiter, and danced off for a drink, they may not be too worried!”

Tiberius returned a rueful look. “So will they realize that you and I are investigating instead?”

I reckoned it was safer for us if they didn’t find out our track record. “Darling, I’d like to think I have a reputation as a dogged inquirer and you as a meticulous magistrate-but luckily on the Viminal we are neither of us known. Here you are merely the building contractor and I am-”

“The contractor’s sparky wife!”

He enjoyed being able to say that. Fortunately, I never felt diminished; he saw us as an equal partnership. In fact, he viewed me as essential. We two would, in every respect, jointly run our family business. The reason I loved Tiberius was that he had never envisaged anything else.

Our foreman, Larcius, came into the courtyard, quietly waiting until we were ready for him. He had been off and found a local undertaker to collect the bones. There were too many, and it was all too public, for us to simply shunt them into a big hole somewhere. Besides, no aedile-well, not this aedile-could be so impious.

Tiberius gave instructions that the skeletons were to be kept for a time, in case our inquiries necessitated further inspection. Besides, we liked to be hopeful. We wanted to believe we could identify the dead, giving us a chance to allow their relatives to hold funerals.

The undertaker’s cart came. One by one, the collection was lifted and taken away. It was now so late we saw off the bones by lamplight. Then, finally, the courtyard at the Garden of the Hesperides lay in darkness, deserted and empty.