Requiem for a Slave

Twenty-Three

The tanner’s woman did not turn her head to glance at us at all, but stumped imperiously on. She did not, as I expected, move towards her gate, but walked straight past it to the corner of the block and down the street that led towards the main road from the town. We were in the northern suburb here, just outside the gates, and I thought she was going to lead us to the high road further out, which was flanked with tombs and led off eastwards towards Corinium and beyond.

But, to my surprise, she doubled back again, down the narrow lane that led behind her premises and so back to the alley where the midden-pile was, so that we were now on the other side of it.

For the moment, however, I could not see the pile. The alleyway was narrow at the best of times, and now there was a crowd of people clustered into it, all of them craning to get a better view. One of them turned to glance as we approached and I recognized him from the tanner’s works — he had been one of the people scraping hides the day before.

The tanner’s wife had recognized him too. ‘Out of my way, you oaf!’ she barked. He backed away, and instantly a sort of path appeared, thanks to a general shuffle in the crowd. I realized that this was the workforce from the tannery. The stout little figure of the woman struggled through the gap, and as we tried in vain to follow her, she climbed up on a cracked pot at the bottom of the heap and turned to face the milling bystanders. ‘Get back to your work, the lot of you. There’s nothing more to see. Servus and Parvus, go and fetch a skinning board, and we’ll put this on it and carry it inside, and send for the slaves’ guild to take care of it. The rest of you — there’s tanning to be done. Stay here another moment and I’ll turn you on the streets.’

This outburst had an immediate effect. The two men that she had nominated — obviously slaves — trotted off at once in the direction of the house, and all the other workers seemed to melt away like dew. Junio and I were left alone with the tanner’s wife and found ourselves able to approach the midden-pile and take a look at it.

This side of it had clearly been recently disturbed, revealing something that had been roughly hidden beneath the surface rubbish — something that looked at first sight like a pile of bones and rags. It was still partly covered by a piece of filthy sack, but I hardly needed to examine it. I understood, with sinking heart, what those dogs had been so excited by a little while before.

‘Glypto?’ I murmured, genuinely shocked. ‘When did this happen?’

‘I don’t exactly know.’ It was the tanner’s rasping voice and I turned to see him standing very close behind. I had not seen him till that moment, though clearly he’d been there. ‘One moment he was hobbling to and from the house, and the next he’d simply gone. It must be. . I don’t know how long. . since I saw him last.’

His wife gave an impatient, disgusted little snort. ‘Then you’ve even fewer brains than I supposed you had. The last time I summoned him, it was to stoke the fire in the tanning house. I watched him do it — he shirks it otherwise — and now it has almost completely burned away. That would take half an hour or so at least, and when I looked and found he wasn’t there, the cauldron was not only off the boil, but it was starting to cool down. I was furious, of course. I had to stoke the fire myself to keep the tannage warm. That’s why I wanted him so urgently — to bring more fuel to get it brewing up again — but I couldn’t find him then, and we have been hunting for him for a long time since. So the answer to your question, citizen, is an hour, more or less.’

I nodded. That accorded with what I knew myself. ‘Shortly after I saw him at the pile, when I was talking to the cursor on the street,’ I said.

The woman glowered again. ‘And whose fault is it that the poor old fool is dead?’ she demanded angrily. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, and my foolish husband there, Glypto would not have been lurking in the gap, getting himself stabbed to death and buried in the pile.’

‘Stabbed to death?’ That was a real surprise. I hadn’t taken a close look at the corpse, which was anyway still part-covered by refuse from the pile: the top half obscured mostly by the piece of sack, but the legs still under what looked like kitchen waste. I noted rancid fat and vegetable skins as well as hooves and bones and fur-scrapings from the nearby factory. I had caught a glimpse of bloodstains on the length of tattered loincloth I could see, but I’d put that down to the gruesome activity of the dogs.

‘You are sure of that?’ I’d supposed that he’d been strangled like the other two.

She gave a mirthless grin. ‘It rather looks that way. Something pointed has made a hole between his ribs.’ She wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘Take a look yourself. I had them pull that piece of sacking over him. I didn’t want the rats and dogs to gnaw him any more.’

I moved the piece of sack and knelt down on it myself — fruitless to try to save my toga now — and took a closer look at Glypto’s corpse. He had been thin in life and he was thinner still in death, no more than a skeleton encased in wrinkled skin. The woman was quite right: there was a knife wound in the chest and it had bled a lot, not only on the loincloth but on the pile beneath — presumably fresh blood was what had drawn the dogs. They had gnawed the wound quite badly, and the arm as well, but the rest of the body was more or less intact. When I brushed off the rubbish, I could see the heavy boots — the skinny feet still in them — and the sight of the iron collar round the neck gave me a little jolt.

The knife, which had been carefully removed, had struck with deadly skill. There was no sign of struggle or of other injury, and the old face looked — oddly — more surprised than pained.

It was clear that, once dead, he had been shoved down on the pile, and some of the contents pulled down over him, though even if we had not known it for a fact, we could have deduced that the body had not lain there very long: the stinking wet of rotting waste had not had time to seep deep into the clothes, only to damp the edges, and the hair, though full of leaves and rubbish, was not matted to his head, despite the recent rain.

In fact, I thought, we should be grateful to the starving dogs. If they’d not been driven to scrabble in the heap and dig the body up, it might have lain there quite a long time undisturbed until it had disintegrated into rot itself, the stench lost in the general stink that always permeates the heap.

Junio was tugging at my toga sleeve — more like his slave self than my only son. ‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘this proves that we were wrong. No one could stab Glypto thinking it was you. He doesn’t look like you, or dress like you, or wheel your pavements round the street for you — none of the things we spoke of earlier.’ He shook his head. ‘Or is there a second killer, do you think? I suppose there could be — there’s a different method used. Glypto wasn’t strangled.’

I didn’t answer. I got slowly to my feet. I was feeling very old. I turned to the stout woman still glowering at my side. ‘Madam, I am sorry that you have lost your slave. I can see it is a blow. If I can prove who killed him, as I hope I may, there is a possibility that you could claim redress. I will let you know as soon as I have news. In the meantime, I see your slaves have come, bringing the skinning board to take the body on. No doubt the slaves’ guild will arrange the funeral. Send me word when it happens, and I’ll attend the pyre.’

The woman gave me a baleful glance. ‘Claim redress!’ she muttered. ‘What? And buy myself another servant in his stead? You think that is so easy? You are nothing but a fool. Worse than my husband, if that’s possible. Parvus and Servus, pick this body up!’ She whirled around, to my astonishment, and almost spat at me. ‘And don’t go anywhere near his funeral, do you understand? He was my slave, and you killed him, whatever you may say! As surely as if you’d plunged that knife in him yourself. So don’t pretend you’re sorry and come snivelling around his pyre.’ And following the slaves, who had scooped the body up, she seized her silent husband by the arm and marched, as rigid as a centurion, back down the alleyway and round towards her door.

Junio looked helplessly at me. ‘Just because you told her that she might claim redress. That’s hardly gratitude.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t suppose she did the deed herself? Stabbed him in a fit of rage, because she found him out here at the pile again when he was supposed to tend the fire? She might have done. She’s quite strong enough, and there’s plenty of sharp knives in the house — after all, they use them for skinning all the time.’ He was warming to this theory now. ‘Suppose she came out carrying a blade, struck him harder than she meant and killed him, more or less by accident. Wouldn’t she have tried to bury him a bit — scrabble a bit of the rubbish over him — and then sent in for help, pretending she’d just found him? By her own admission she put the sacking over him. Perhaps it wasn’t even such an accident.’

I put a fatherly hand upon his arm. ‘I don’t think she killed him. I think he was killed because of what he knew — and most likely by the strangler himself.’

‘But we know she hated him. She flogged him dreadfully, locked him out all night, kept him with that chain around his neck-’ He broke off. ‘Oh I see. Glypto always wore that heavy collar round his neck. Even if the strangler had wanted to slip a cord around his throat — like he did the others — he couldn’t have done so, because that was in the way?’

‘Exactly so,’ I said. ‘Using the knife may have been an unexpected last resort.’ I went towards the midden as I spoke, half-wondering if there was a way to clamber over it, but it was far too high. High enough, as Glypto had observed, to hide a child — or a corpse — that was on the other side. I cursed myself for my lack of curiosity when I’d come out to search for Glypto in the rain. I turned and began to walk the long way home again.

Junio trotted after me. ‘Well, I still think there is something strange about the tanner’s wife.’ He was reluctant to cede the argument. ‘She was behaving very oddly after he was dead. You don’t think it was guilt?’

‘On the contrary,’ I said, pausing at the corner to let him reach my side, and dropping my voice in case the tanner was in earshot just beyond the wall. ‘She always acts like that. In fact, if anything, I think she’s feeling grief.’

He looked at me, puzzled. ‘Grief? For Glypto? But she despised him. She was always saying so. She thought he was a fool. She was always threatening to get rid of him.’

‘But she never did. And if her husband had ever tried to sell him on, she would have left the house and taken her dowry with her — he told me that himself.’ I saw his look of blank bewilderment. ‘Glypto had been her slave since she was just a girl. She treated him appallingly, of course, as you so rightly say, but, in her own peculiar way, he was probably the only thing she ever cared about. And I think the tanner knows it.’

Junio swallowed and said pensively, ‘And he put up with it? Simply to keep the dowry, I suppose. I wonder what will happen to that household now?’ He stared thoughtfully towards the rear entrance of the tannery, which we were now passing. Clouds of acrid smoke were pouring out of it and swirling round the lane — obviously the tannage process was in full swing again. ‘Perhaps it will help if we can solve the crimes and find out who killed Glypto. At least she cannot blame you for it then, as she seems prone to do.’

I said heavily, ‘But the tanner’s wife is right. I am very much to blame. Glypto was killed because he tried to come to me, to offer information. I did not see the danger and I let him down.’

‘It’s not your fault that someone planned to murder him.’

I paused at the corner of the street to say, ‘I don’t believe that Glypto’s death was planned — not like the other two. I think it went like this. The murderer found out that Glypto knew too much and that he was planning to meet me at the pile, so then, of course, he knew he had to act. He kept a watch for Glypto somewhere close nearby and found him loitering in the alley-gap. It was raining by then and there was no one else about, so he took the opportunity to slip a knife between his ribs and covered him quickly with rubbish from the heap, thus giving himself the time to make his own escape before the body was discovered. And he might have got away with it, if it wasn’t for the dogs.’

Junio looked at me. ‘You seem very certain — almost as if you’d worked out who the green man is.’

‘I wish I had,’ I told him. ‘But every time I think I have an answer to all this, something happens which makes me change my mind. But don’t let’s stand and talk about it here. As Virilis told us, the street has ears and eyes, and there is still the problem of Radixrapum’s corpse. But we must talk it over — I am sure there’s something very obvious I’ve missed — and very soon indeed. I need to solve this mystery before my patron comes. There might be dreadful consequences for us otherwise.’

Junio misunderstood my train of thought. ‘Because the strangler is still after you?’ He sounded quite appalled. ‘Of course! He has already made two attempts upon your life — if our deductions so far prove to be correct — and both times he failed. So you are still in danger. Don’t stay here in the street. The strangler might be somewhere very close nearby, and, as the tanner said earlier, he may be watching us — as he was obviously watching Glypto too.’

‘He can hardly strangle both of us at once, and I’m quite certain that he works alone. As long as there is someone with me, I should be quite safe,’ I said, wishing I believed it.

But Junio was already tugging at my arm. ‘Come back into the shop. Maximus and I will try to make quite sure that you’re not left alone at all — not until the killer has been caught.’

I submitted to his pleading and permitted him to hustle me towards the workshop door — just in time to meet Maximus coming out of it.