Ten for Dying

Chapter Forty-one

Anatolius contemplated the one-armed man seated on the other side of the desk. “You would be Felix’s servant.”

“Nikomachos, sir.”

“I remember seeing you at his house in the past.”

“Most people remember me, sir. Perhaps it is my blue eyes.”

Anatolius tapped his reed pen on the skull grinning up from the mosaic decorating the desk top. “Have you brought me a message from your master?”

“I regret I have been forced by circumstances to take a temporary absence from my employment.”

“By circumstances you mean stealing a valuable cloak from a dead man and possibly murdering him as well?”

“I assure you I did not kill the courier, sir. You are correct, however, that I have been forced to abandon my duties for fear of being accused of murder.”

“Why are you here, Nikomachos? You realize that I should summon the urban watch immediately.”

The absconding servant did not appear to be perturbed by the possibility. “I know you are a friend of the captain’s. I had to leave in a hurry and did not realize the full extent of the serious trouble he was in. Since then word has spread all over the city. I thought I might be able to help.”

“It’s plain enough you wouldn’t dare approach the City Prefect. How do you suppose you can help Captain Felix by coming to me?”

“I know that he did not kill the courier.”

Anatolius slid a sheet of parchment over the skull and dipped his pen into the ink pot sitting at one corner of the desk. “How is this?”

Nikomachos settled back in his chair and reached over with his one hand to clasp the stump of his missing arm, coming as near as possible-disconcertingly so as far as Anatolius was concerned-to crossing his arms. “The morning the corpse was found in the courtyard I rose at my usual hour, Which is to say while it was still dark and long before the rest of the household. As I was going about attending to my duties at the back of the house I heard voices. It isn’t uncommon to hear people passing by in the alley but something in the tone caught my attention, so I stepped outside. At that instant a figure dropped down from over the wall. A robber, I thought. But before I had a chance to raise the alarm, I noticed that the form by the wall didn’t move.

“I got a lamp and crept forward. The figure just lay there. He didn’t react. I could tell right away he must be an aristocrat because the lamp light sparkled off jewels sewn to his short cloak.”

Anatolius’ pen scratched at the parchment. “So naturally the first action that occurred to you was to steal the dead man’s cloak and hide it in your room, where it was soon found by the urban watch.”

“I thought the intruder was so intoxicated as to be unconscious, sir.”

“Surely you realized he was dead?”

“After a closer examination, yes. But I’m not here to defend my actions. I don’t try to defend them. We must take care of ourselves. A dead man does not miss his cloak. Life is cruel and sometimes we must act cruelly.” He shrugged and tapped his stump. “But you see my point? The captain would hardly have killed the man and then dumped him in his own courtyard.”

“True, provided anyone would be prepared to believe your story.”

“I have found that a war wound tends to corroborate one’s testimony, sir. But in fact, I offer my story in case it might encourage you to unearth other witnesses.”

“Did you recognize the dead man?”

“I recognized him as a man who came to the house on occasion, delivering packages. I did not know who he was and I never heard him addressed by name.”

“And you happened to observe these meetings?”

“At my job, one needs to be alert. But I am also discreet.”

Anatolius made a few more scribbles, pondering on what he had been told. He suspected Nikomachos was interested in saving his employer to save his employment. His actions hadn’t been reasonable. Then again most of the distressed clients Anatolius met in this office were there because they had acted without reasoning things through carefully. “Did you by any chance relieve the courier of a package as well as a cloak?”

“I did not, sir. I took a few coins, I admit. And a small dagger. He was not carrying a package.”

“Are you certain?”

“I searched the young man well enough to know he did not have a package on him. The dagger was well hidden beneath his garment.”

Felix’s haughty servant departed without revealing anything else of value. He was hiding at a friend’s but wouldn’t say where.

Anatolius picked the parchment up and studied it. So Nikomachos had confirmed Felix wasn’t the murderer and the courier had only arrived in the courtyard after he was dead and the package had been taken from him, if indeed he had been carrying it in the first place. If, that is, one were to believe Nikomachos.

Was that useful?

Would anyone of importance believe a thieving servant?

If nothing else, it reminded Anatolius of his promise to Felix to investigate the matter.

He laid the parchment down. There was nothing on it but a detailed sketch of a grinning skull. Yes, he was definitely getting better at drawing that skull, although he still hadn’t got the toothy grin right.

***

The grin of the dead man who was stretched out on the concrete floor of an underground room at the City Prefect’s offices wasn’t right either.

The face had been torn away, leaving a partially fleshed skull framed by dark hair. The ravens hadn’t got far with the neck, which still exhibited an indentation akin to a necklace, the gift of the hangman in the Hippodrome.

Anatolius straightened up, keeping his sleeve pressed over his nose and mouth as Flaccus, the attendant, yanked sackcloth back into place, covering the horror. Flies immediately descended and started searching for an entry.

A dozen or so shrouded heaps were scattered over the floor of the chamber. The humid air was alive with flies, several of which crawled across Flaccus’ bald, sweating scalp. He appeared to be oblivious to them.

“No one’s identified him?” Anatolius asked.

Flaccus’ extraordinarily wide, toothless mouth, curled into a gum-revealing grin almost as hideous as that of the faceless corpse. “You just seen him. What do you think?”

Anatolius had had reason to speak with the short, corpulent attendant before. This was where the urban watch brought unidentified bodies-a crop Constantinople produced in abundance-on the small chance that someone might claim them.

“What kind of man was he? Are there any indications?”

Flaccus’ puckered his lips in thought. “He weren’t carrying nothing. His tunic was coarse, unbleached cloth, but fairly new. Calloused hands, but only slightly. A man who worked but not one who done hard labor. A house servant, I’d say. His owner will come inquiring about a missing slave eventually but we’ll have to bury him sooner than that for obvious reasons.” He sniffed, not without a certain air of enjoyment, the way one might sniff at a fine, ripe cheese.

“If you find out anything more let me know. I’m really more interested in the fellow found naked in the embrace of Aphrodite.”

“He’s gone home, he has.”

“And who was he?”

“Ah now, there’s a deep, dark mystery for you. The Prefect himself come down with the widow. Ordered me out before she identified him.”

“All the more reason for you to have ascertained his identity, Flaccus. Where there’s secrecy there’s usually gold to be had. People overhear conversations, they happen to see official reports, word gets around.”

“Word might get around, but we’re duty bound not to let it get out, if I may say so respectfully. As I’m sure you understand, working for the Prefect’s office I am a representative of the law, sir, just as you are.”

Anatolius watched a fly make its stately procession across the glistening dome of the representative of the law. “I realize there’s murder involved and that it might involve a sensitive matter, Flaccus, but I’m not interested in any of that. My only interest is the widow.”

Flaccus leered at him but said nothing.

“I’m not thinking of romance! I’m a lawyer. Widows usually need legal assistance. There will be an estate to handle, various formalities to attend to, that sort of thing. As a matter of professional courtesy, naturally you’ll be entitled to a fee.”

The grotesque grin stretched across Flaccus’ face from pink ear to pink ear. “I understand now, sir. It hurts to think of unscrupulous legal cheats lying in wait for a poor young widow. I’d be doing a good turn sending her an honest man such as yourself.”