Saturnalia

SATURNALIA, DAY FOUR

I had sent one of the soldiers to tell Petro I was home, and ask him about the situation in the city. He whizzed straight around to our house. I should have remembered he rarely worked in the day so would be free to socialise. Anyone would think the bounder knew he would walk in on me just as I sat down for a private interrogation of the priestess. Petronius had a black eye. 'What happened to you?' 'Forgot to duck. Pelted with a festive nut.' 'Some street urchin?' 'No, Maia.' Petronius Longus took one look at Veleda and announced that she was too gorgeous for me, so he had better stay to lunch. Since it was only mid-morning, that put an end to any hopes I had of a session alone with her. Alone apart from Nux, that is; for the dog was lying asleep at my feet, re-establishing her rights after my two days away from home; she treated the forest femme fatale as if she wasn't there. Helena had had to go shopping, urgently needing to replenish the store cupboard, which the soldiers had emptied while we were away. Albia was helping Galene keep the children quiet. The legionaries had been posted on protective guard around the house and on the roof terrace.

Hoarse with curiosity, Petro assured me I would be safer having a witness if I was prying into state secrets. The priestess gazed at my brazen old tentmate as if he was the kind of tree-trunk snail her tribe ate mashed up on crusts at feasts. He had not changed since we were lads; female disdain only encouraged him. 'Falco's all right,' Petronius confided with his friendliest manner. 'But a famous lady deserves respect; you need an interview with a professional.' 'Lucius Petronius Longus lives with my sister,' I warned Veleda. 'The suspicious, hot-headed one.' 'Are you related to everyone in Rome, Falco?' 'It's the only way to be in this city.' Petronius sprawled in Helena's armchair, and happily beamed at both of us. I tried to put him off by abandoning my interview and grilling him on why the mood on the streets had seemed so angry last night. Petro told me that Anacrites had caused the dismay. In a wayward ploy that was typical, the Spy had openly let it be known that Rome's loathed and feared enemy was a fugitive at large – making sure he included the detail that she had taken flight after horrifically murdering one of her aristocratic Roman hosts. He was now leaving it to the mob to turn up her hiding place and hand her over.

'Or tear her to pieces, of course,' Petro suggested. 'Oh sorry, sweetheart!' Veleda produced a wan smile. She had passed beyond insults.

Anacrites had seen fit to offer a reward, though given the constraints of his budget, it was a ludicrously small one. However, it had made partying in the streets assume a violent trend. To enhance the air of menace, the Praetorian Guard were openly conducting a stop-and-search of any unaccompanied women; ugly stories had circulated about how they did it. Anybody German, or with German connections, had left town if they knew what was good for them. Foreigners of all flavours were hiding indoors; naturally there were some who had not been told about the problem, had not understood the implications, or just did not speak the right language to grasp the danger to them. Many had discovered the situation when they had been beaten up by 'patriotic Romans' – most of whom were foreigners by birth, of course. The people who were keenest to look patriotic were the ones who originated in Upper and Lower Germany.

Petronius cursed this development. He said the vigiles already had their hands full, without beatings on every street corner. Saturnalia meant a big increase in fires, due to the enormous number of festive lamps in feckless homes. There were fights everywhere, arising from friends and family fall-outs, even before this new rash of anti-barbarian feeling. Petro was glad that the vigiles could at least stop the searches he had set in hand for me; I asked him to tell the cohort commanders this was because of poor results, without mentioning that I had in fact found Veleda. I wanted to avoid bounty hunters turning up at my house. 'Quite right!' exclaimed Petronius, managing to imply I was a bounty hunter myself Still seeking to distract him, I asked if the vigiles searchers had come across anything unusual to do with dead vagrants. He gave me a sideways look, but slowly admitted there might be a problem. 'We have been aware of an increased unclaimed-corpse count for some time.' 'Does Scythax know about it? Or is he somehow mixed up in it?' 'Of course not. Crazy suggestion, Falco.' 'Hear my words: he had a very fresh cadaver of a runaway slave laid out on his workbench when we took in Lentullus. According to Scythax, someone dumps them outside the patrol house, but that story sounds fishy.' 'Reminds me: my tribune wants you to shift Lentullus off our premises. ' 'Tell Rubella to stuff a festive garland where it hurts. And answer my question, please.'

Petronius shrugged and admitted there had always been a high death rate among the homeless, as long as he had been in the vigiles. Recently numbers had increased; they blamed the winter weather. 'So why does your doctor involve himself?' Petro looked shifty, so I kept probing until he stopped wriggling and owned up feebly, 'Scythax takes an interest in why the vagrants die.' 'An interest – how?' 'I believe,' said Petronius, looking shy, 'he has been known to dissect the corpses.' I presumed that information had to be kept confidential. 'Using the dead for autopsies is illegal, I'm told.' 'Too right, it is! We don't want unnatural practices in backstreet morgues. ' 'No, much better to have them right in your patrol house!'

On my promise of discretion, Petronius said what I already knew, that Scythax was occasionally allowed to take away the corpses of criminals who died in the arena – so long as he carried out any scientific research in his spare time and it was all kept quiet. The excuse was that what Scythax learned could help the army repair wounded soldiers. In any case, post-mortems only happened when the executed criminals had no family to complain, and when Scythax could pay enough bribes to sweeten the arena staff.

'So when his supply from the arena dwindles, he encourages the dumping of dead runaways on your doorstep. Does he advertise this service? Jupiter, Petro, does he buy the bodies? And if so – you need to think about this – is somebody killing off vagrants deliberately for Scythax?' Petronius Longus sat bolt upright. 'Nuts, Falco. Scythax would never countenance that. Besides, there are far too many runaway slaves being found dead!' 'So it's really a problem? You think you have a serial killer?' 'I think it's possible.' 'Because the targets are vagrants, does nobody care?' 'I care, Marcus.' All this time, Veleda had been sitting quiet, listening to us pretty blank-faced. She had a basket chair, like the one Petronius had commandeered, and was wrapped in shawls, with her feet on a small footstool. Had she had a wool basket at her feet, a child on her chair arm and a pet bird in her lap, she could have been a classic Roman matron. You might say she was too blonde – but a lot of married women I knew had turned mysteriously golden-haired, once they got their hands on their husband's income.

The intent way she was listening to us had attracted my attention. I doubted she was merely entranced by our talented oratory. 'Veleda, you went out on the medication run from the Temple of Жsculapius. They find a lot of these bodies. Anything you can tell us about it?'

'Did she?' exploded Petronius. Assuming he was upset at the thought of her wandering loose on the streets that his cohort patrolled, I ignored him. 'I never saw anything like that.' Veleda disappointed me. Even if she had seen something, gratitude to the temple kept her silent. I decided it was time to pick up my original intention and tackle her about the death of Scaeva. Petronius Longus crossed his booted feet on a low table, linked his hands behind his head, and watched me proceed. His stare was supposed to unnerve me. I had known him a long time and just ignored his attitude.

I explained to Veleda that one reason I had agreed to Helena's suggestion and let her come to my house was that I hoped to use this period before I handed her over to justice – whoops, took her back to the authorities – in an attempt to discover what had really happened at the Quadrumatus house. If she was innocent of beheading Scaeva, I proposed to clear her. She seemed less impressed by this handsome offer than I thought she should have been. Maybe when you are already indicted for the deaths of thousands of Roman soldiers, one more murder makes little difference on the charge sheet. 'I like to know the truth, V eleda.' 'I remember.' She should do. I had, after all, once trekked for days to ask her, amongst other things, about the fate of a kidnapped army legate. It was nearly ten years now since that man disappeared in Germany, but if ever relationships became too friendly with this woman, what happened to the legate ought to be remembered. Veleda had not killed him (in her version), nor even ordered his appalling death by drowning while trussed up and pressed under a hurdle in a bog. Still, the devoted tribes who followed her had thought a kidnapped Roman army commander was a suitable 'gift' to send to her. Whether they expected her to eat him, rape him, kill him herself, or keep him on a perch in a golden cage and teach him to tweet nursery rhymes had never been entirely clear, but it was certain that even if his fickle captors had not finished him off before he ever reached her, Veleda herself would have sacrificed the legate to her gods and stacked his bones in the kind of shoulder-high ossuary that I and my companions saw in the forest. That was what this woman now sitting quietly in my home had once been. Perhaps she still was. In fact, since she showed no sign of repentance, make that 'perhaps' a 'probably'.

'You told me that you did not kill Scaeva.' Five years ago Veleda had assured me she did not kill the legate either; she may have been lying. She certainly was responsible for his death, through firing up her followers' bloodlust. She could be lying about Scaeva. 'Do you know who did kill him? Or why?' 'No.' 'Were you there when he died?' 'No.' 'But you saw his severed head lying in the atrium pool?' Perhaps Veleda hesitated. Petronius certainly winced as he imagined it. 'I did not see the head, Falco.' At my irritated growl, Veleda added quickly, 'I never passed through the atrium that day; I left by way of a tradesmen's exit on the side of the house. But I knew that Scaeva's head was there. Ganna had seen it. She ran and told me.

This did not fit the facts Ganna had fed to me. I wondered if, in some way I had yet to discover, Ganna was trying to protect the priestess.

'So tell us,' Petronius leaned forward with his 'trust me' look. 'What exactly happened on that afternoon. Let's start with why your – maid, is she? -' 'Acolyte,' I said tersely. 'Oh nice! We'll start with why your acolyte was walking thorough the atrium, shall we?'

Veleda told him without arguing: 'I had some letters that 1 could not read.' That was good. Whatever mad, romantic pleas Justinus had made, Veleda had never been able to read them. Excellent. 'At first 1 did not want to read them -' Even better. This was too important for scoring points, but Petro did enjoy a smirk at me over the way she was confiding in him. 'I became so unhappy 1 changed my mind. The only person we could trust there was the man who had delivered the letters to me: Scaeva. 1 was constantly being watched – that terrible old woman who attended on Drusilla Gratiana -' 'Phryne.' 1 scored no points for sounding knowledgeable. 'Phryne, of course. Phryne had always made it clear she hated me. She knew every move 1 made. So Ganna was going to ask Scaeva what the letters said.' 'She never managed it?' asked Petro. Veleda shook her head. Now the story went that Ganna only made it as far as the atrium that afternoon; she saw the head, then raced back – with the letters to inform Veleda of the murder. They realised at once that blame would be piled on the priestess, so with no chance for further conversation, Veleda made her escape in the laundry cart.

'So why didn't the young lady go with you?' asked Petro, with what he probably imagined was a winning smile. Veleda's eyes were shadowed; 1 reckoned she felt patronised. 'We thought there would be an investigation.' 'There is an investigation. Didius Falco is conducting it now.' 'No, we thought there would be an investigation at the house, straight after the murder. Ganna says nothing ever happened.'

1 interrupted quietly to explain that Quadrumatus Labeo had refused to have investigators on the premises until the nine days of formal mourning for Scaeva had finished. 'What's he hiding?' Petronius asked me. 'Did it to "spare the distressed relatives further upset".' 'Beautiful! Didn't these relatives want to know who killed their boy?' 'You said it!' 'Ganna did not understand what Quadrumatus was doing.' Veleda showed no emotion at our angry exchange. 'She despaired of justice, so she made her escape too. But initially we hoped she would be able to exonerate me. Ganna stayed behind in order to tell the enquiry officer what she had seen.' Petronius Longus, practised as he was, managed not to sound starded. 'And what was that?' Veleda, equally intelligent, was clearly enjoying the suspense. 'Ganna had seen someone positioning the head in the pool.' Of course we demanded to know who it was. According to Veleda, Ganna had never told her.

Petronius could see no problem with this. We would go and ask Ganna to name the culprit. That was before I explained that Ganna had now been placed for safe keeping in the House of the Vestal Virgins, where no men are allowed. 'You've been there, Falco!' 'In the first place, as you so often tell me, I am an idiot. Then, it nearly got me executed. If anyone is breaking into the Vestals' House, dear Lucius, it's your turn.' He declined the offer. 'So what happened to the letters from Justinus?' I asked Veleda. 'I left them behind in my hurry. Maybe Ganna still has them.' We would probably have put Veleda through some even more intense questioning, but at that moment Helena came in. Our daughters were clinging to her skirts, ruining the fabric while they gave the priestess the hostile toddlers' silent stare treatment. Stooping and prising little hands free, Helena announced that Zosime had come to the house as promised, so she was taking Veleda away from us for a consultation in private. Julia and Favonia made a break for safety, and rushed across the room to me. Petronius casually captured Favonia as she tumbled over in her haste.

Just as the priestess reached the door, Petronius stopped her. He always favoured the routine where a witness was allowed to think they had been released, then he flung an extra question at them. As my daughter hid her face in his tunic then peeped at the priestess, Petro called out: 'So, Veleda, when Zosime took you out among the homeless, did you ever suspect she was harming them, not healing?' Veleda looked surprised, then denied it. Helena then shepherded her out.

I asked Petronius if there was a real suspicion that Zosime was behind the deaths of the vagrants. Ever cagey about vigiles business, he merely confirmed that he had the woman on a watch list.

I was glad that Helena was supervising the consultation here. I could not see Zosime as a killer – but if she was, I did not want her working any fatal magic on Veleda. Having Rome's famous prisoner die before the Triumph would be bad enough. Having her die at my house would finish my career.