The Germanicus Mosaic

Chapter Twenty-seven

Matters were soon arranged. The Dubonnai woman was so delighted at being able to keep her ‘hero’ for burial, that she agreed to lending the precious ox cart without the slightest demur, although others of the family were visibly less enthusiastic. The young osier cutter, in particular, seemed to feel that it was a very bad exchange.

Which it was, I thought, although Marcus still had no idea how bad. I would have to ensure that he was scrupulous about returning the cart. I allowed him to supervise the loading, while I set about freeing Paulus.

The barber was so frightened he was almost unable to stand, and when I undid the ropes and gags he burst into tears and blurted that he did not know how to thank me. It made me feel uncomfortable; after all, I had been instrumental in having him bound in the first place.

‘Thank me,’ I said severely, ‘by saying nothing — nothing at all, on the way home. I will leave Junio with you to make sure you do not.’

‘But, citizen-’ he began.

‘If you hope to escape with your life,’ I said, ‘say nothing. Except, you can tell me where you went during the procession on the feast of Mars. I know where the others were. Andretha went to the moneylender, Rufus visited the temple, and Aulus followed him. That leaves you. I presume you did not merely roam the streets.’

The boy coloured. ‘I went to a barber’s shop, citizen,’ he said meekly. ‘I had used almost all of Regina’s herbal ointment for cuts, and I wanted something to replace it. I bought the concoction of spiders’ webs you saw. Crassus would never permit me to buy such things, but they eased my task. If I could staunch the bleeding, Crassus hit me less.’

‘And?’ I said. I remembered how terrified the boy had seemed when I questioned him.

He looked at me helplessly. ‘I took it to one of our priests to have it blessed, to make sure it worked. Some of these potions are useless. But the man is a known Druid. I knew where to find him. .’ Paulus shuddered. With reason, I thought. If the authorities ever heard of this, they would beat the information out of him first, and execute him later.

We were already out of earshot, but I took him by the arm and led him further off. ‘And the head? No — this is no time for denials. You hid the head of a statue in your hollow tree. Aulus saw you.’

He had turned chalk white again. ‘It was in the lararium when we came back from the festival. The statue was broken — the head was severed and there was a bloodstain on it. And my master had been murdered, with his head in the furnace. I thought — you can see what I thought. People would think that I had done it. The body of the statue was no problem. It was only roughly carved to suggest a toga, and without the head it just looked like a piece of weathered stone. I simply threw it away. But the head! I was terrified someone would find that! I took it away and hid it in the tree.’

‘Where Aulus found it,’ I said.

Paulus gaped. ‘He had it?’

I nodded.

‘In that case. .’ The barber trailed off helplessly. ‘But it would have done no good, I had no money to bribe him. When I found the head had gone, I panicked. I ran away to Lucius. You cannot be punished for running away to find someone to plead for you, and I thought if I confessed he would protect me. He would believe me in any case. I had done nothing.’ He gulped hard. ‘But Lucius was angry — I suppose because he thought I had dealings with idols.’

‘That was not Lucius,’ I said. ‘Lucius was already dead.’ I explained, briefly. ‘And no suspicion for any murder now attaches to you. So, keep your mouth shut about Druids and you may yet escape from this alive. You came to find your new master, that is all you need to say. Keep your own counsel and do not run away again. Now, here is Marcus coming. I must go.’

I got back into the gig with my patron and we bounced uncomfortably back towards Glevum. Even then, I did not try to explain until we were past the staging post. I did not want Marcus to go back to the roundhouse and start demanding the body.

When I did explain, he was thunderstruck.

‘The hermit was Crassus!’ he kept exclaiming. ‘I can’t believe it. How did he get away with it?’

‘He looked much like his brother,’ I said. ‘And you heard the woman, no one at the roundhouse had seen Lucius shaved. When Crassus took his place, he claimed that he had shaved his head and beard in mourning for his brother. Equally, none of us had seen Crassus with a beard. His plan was to hide himself away until he had time to grow one. It would not take him long. With that cowled hood and the dim light of the cave, he came close to getting away with it.’

‘I see,’ Marcus said. There was a silence, during which we bounced along more perilously than ever. ‘At least. . no, I don’t see. Lead me through the arguments again. Crassus killed Regina and buried her under your pavement. And then he got Daedalus to take his place in the procession so that he could meet his brother at the villa unobserved; that much I understand. I suppose that is why he gave all his slaves a holiday to Glevum. I thought it was unlike him at the time.’

‘I doubt he even went as far as Glevum himself,’ I said. ‘It is more likely that he just went to the ruined roundhouse, where Daedalus changed into his old uniform. They must have hidden it there.’

Marcus said thoughtfully, ‘That would explain the piece of scale-armour which you found there. I suppose Crassus simply waited until the villa cart had left and then went back to the house to await his brother. But how would he get in? The gates were locked. You think he scrambled up the path past the nymphaeum? That would be quite a feat, in full armour.’

‘Yes, but he was very strong. He was getting fat, but he was a centurion after all. He had been trained to march twenty-four miles non-stop in a day, carrying his kit. Besides, we do not know that he was wearing armour then. It would have been an easy matter simply to come back in his tunic. That would have impressed his brother, too. Lucius must have believed he had a true convert, a veteran centurion who chose to miss the festival of Mars. It was on those grounds, perhaps, that they shared a celebration drink.’

‘Into which Crassus had poured Regina’s aconite,’ Marcus finished. ‘I wonder why he did not use some of that to try to poison Regina herself.’

‘She was too familiar with poisons,’ I said. ‘She may even have carried antidotes — if there are any. No, the novacula was safer. Crassus was strong, it was no problem to tie her and slit her throat.’

‘That is why the blade was bloody?’

‘I don’t think so. I think he cleaned it, that time. He had more time after all, and he took the body to the latrine; he could have cleaned the razor in the running water there. He told me himself how easy that would be. He blunted the blade, though. Paulus said he had to buy a new one, recently.’

‘Much riskier than poison.’

‘But more certain. She probably tested any food he gave her, especially after her custos died. She must have been suspicious of Crassus. He was certainly suspicious of her — look how he got Daedalus to taste everything he ate and drank while she was in the villa. It wasn’t love potions he feared, of course, it was hemlock and aconite.’

‘Yet he did not use her potion to poison you,’ Marcus said. ‘I wonder why?’

‘Perhaps he sprinkled some on the bread, but I doubt there was any left. He would have used a heavy dose to be sure his brother died quickly. There was not a lot of time.’

‘No,’ Marcus agreed. ‘His brother cannot have arrived early; he lived a long way from the villa. And there were no strangers in nearby inns. We established that.’

‘He had a mule,’ I pointed out, ‘Crassus saw to that. And no doubt Lucius left his cave the day before. No one would think it odd — he was known to spend whole nights in prayer with the sick. And he would not stay in an inn. Doubtless if we enquired among Christian sympathisers we would find someone between here and Glevum who offered him shelter for the night.’

‘So Crassus murdered him, dressed him in his own armour, and stuffed his head into the hypocaust?’

‘And his hand,’ I said. ‘I should have seen the force of that. It was only today, as Crassus was imprinting his seal on a wax tablet, that I understood. It was Lucius’ ring, and it was too big for him. Lucius’ hands were fleshier. His finger had to be made smaller before Crassus’ seal ring would fit. It was tight, even for Crassus, I saw the mark it made. It would not fit Lucius. I think he cut away a little of the flesh with the novacula — the blood on the blade must have come from somewhere, and the cuts in the legs did not bleed.’

‘Why did he shave the legs?’

‘He had to, of course, because he had shaved his own. He did that so that Daedalus could impersonate him in the march. Ironically, he was an even worse barber than Paulus was.’

Marcus thought about that. ‘So he forced the ring on, and then thrust the hand into the furnace so that the fire would disguise the wound?’

I nodded. ‘He must have done it early, before the fire died down. He tried to rinse the blade again, but he was in a hurry and the handle and pouch were blood-soaked. He had a better idea. He decided to hide it, as it was, in the barber’s bed. If it was found there, it would incriminate Paulus. I think that’s why he chose the broken genius to replace his own. The fact that it had no head would make us think of Druids.’

‘Why take the statue from the niche at all?’

I laughed, a little shakily. The breathless ride in the gig was taking its toll. It had been a long day. ‘If he left the statue behind it would be ritually broken and charred with the corpse. He was too superstitious for that.’

Marcus said thoughtfully, ‘He must have hated Paulus, to single him out in that way.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure that he did. He chose Paulus just because the slave was inclined to nervous talk; he was likely to blurt out that he’d found the razor, and so implicate himself. If one slave was blamed, the whole household would be executed. That was what Crassus hoped for. After that there would be no one alive who was a real threat to him. By his own will his money came back to him. No doubt he would soon have moved away, renounced Christianity, and begun again.’

‘A complex plan.’

‘It was. It must have taken time and money to accumulate a second set of armour. Breastplates and greaves are not so difficult to buy, but he required a full set of everything, including his torcs of office and his mask. But he had a lot to lose. He was terrified that the real Lucius would “confess”, and he would be charged with poisoning an officer. If that had happened, he would have been put to death. The army does not forgive treachery.’

We were bowling up towards riverside farms and the walls of Glevum were almost in sight. It was getting late, and such other transport as was still on the road was lit with torches. Marcus paused and simply commandeered a light, and then a slave to carry it. If I had attempted that, it would have cost me twenty sesterces — even supposing I did not get my nose punched, or have my purse stolen for my pains. Marcus, to whom twenty sesterces was the merest trifle, did not expect to pay anything. It astonished me.

Marcus, though, was unmoved. ‘Well,’ he said, as if nothing at all had happened, ‘it was clever of you to realise what had happened.’

I said nothing. I was abjectly aware, in fact, of how peculiarly stupid I had been. Everything had pointed to Crassus from the outset. The rings should have given me a clue. Lucius was the same size as Crassus, but a flabbier man. Of course, on a body without a head, it looked like puffiness. I noticed it at the time. Andretha sensed the corpse was subtly wrong, somehow. That’s why he thought it might be Daedalus. The armour had marked the flesh, but I did not see the significance. That is doubtless also why Crassus could not put his sandals on the corpse. The leather would not stretch enough, even on a dead foot. Andretha noticed the sandals were missing. The dead hermit, presumably, was still excellently shod.

I should have sensed something too, when the woman told me that Lucius would not eat, and was getting thin. Of course, Crassus could not feed himself from nature, as his brother did. That must have been the hardest thing for him, surviving on berries and dry bread instead of lunching on seafood in lovage, or warmed sweet cucumber with sage and egg.

There was the question of the mule, as well. It had actually been reported coming and going on the day of the murder, but I had not noted it. Crassus would have thought nothing, of course, of walking fifteen miles back to the cave himself, but the mule was useful to transport the treasure — and no doubt something in the way of comforts too. Crassus would not willingly have gone to a cold, miserable cave in the mountains, even to save his life. The woman and her son noted a change in his habits. I should have spotted that too. He started ‘grieving’ on the feast of Mars, yet Lucius should not have known the news until the day after.

I did not say any of this to Marcus. Better that he continued to think I was very clever.

‘Yes, very clever,’ Marcus said. He was tapping his palm with his baton. ‘I don’t know how you did it.’

I gave him a smile.

‘It was the oatcakes,’ I said. ‘Among other things.’

Marcus raised an eyebrow. ‘Oatcakes?’

‘He simply laid them before me and started to eat. I knew there was something funny about it, but I could not lay my finger on it. And then, when I began to think about it, I remembered other things too. The first time that he saw me, he asked if I came from you. How would Lucius know that? Then he called me by my name. He should not have known it — he had never seen me before. And later, when I told him about Regina’s body, he concluded that I had dug up the pavement. When he said that, I was certain. I had not mentioned the librarium. Why should he guess that her body was buried there?’

Marcus was tapping the baton again. ‘But what about the oatcakes?’

‘Why, any Christian would have blessed the bread. And he had a figurine in his cell — he gave an explanation, but I should have suspected then. No Christian will admit the presence of idols. That was when the last pieces of the mosaic fitted into place.’

‘So when you came to fetch me at the baths, you knew this already? When you spoke of the risk of another death. .?’

‘It was Paulus I feared for.’

Marcus frowned. ‘But you said. .’

‘I warned you we might find ourselves investigating the death of Lucius,’ I reminded him. ‘Which of course, we did.’ I had been rather pleased with my oblique comment at the time, but glancing now at Marcus’ displeased face, I added quickly, ‘Although of course, I didn’t know then for sure.’

Marcus nodded. ‘So, the body we have left at the roundhouse is not the hermit. They will give it burial.’

I smiled. ‘A simple burial in an unnamed grave. Something that Crassus would have hated, but exactly what Lucius desired. Instead his brother subjected him to the ultimate indignity: a pagan ritual and cremation. There is a certain justice, don’t you think?’

Marcus gave me a rueful grin. ‘Perhaps. But what should I report to the governor? Or perhaps he will not care, since it does not affect him. It was nothing to do with the army, or those soldiers at the gate, after all.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘it had everything to do with them. All the murders were a direct result of Crassus killing his superior. He was afraid that Lucius would confess, and then his crime would come to light. He simply killed his witnesses. And as for the centurion at the gate, I am surprised that Aulus did not work that out. It was Daedalus, dressed in his uniform. Armour is heavy, and a man must train in order to wear it easily. It has been said many times that Crassus was trained to march. The wager at the procession would be lost if Daedalus could not maintain the pace or failed under the weight. Aulus reported that the man seemed stronger and more confident the second time.’

We had reached the West Gate now. Other carts and carriages were being refused entrance; wheeled transport was permitted inside the town in the evening, but the gates closed relentlessly at dusk. The soldiers, however, stood aside to let Marcus pass. Junio, on the ox cart, would have a longer wait.

‘What should I tell the governor?’ Marcus said, anxiously. ‘Such plottings, and in a villa I have visited.’

It occurred to me for the first time that slaves and pavement makers are not the only men to fear their betters. I said, softly, ‘I do not presume to advise you, excellence, but suppose that Lucius had killed his brother, knowing of his crimes, and then taken his own life in remorse?’

‘That would have made things easier,’ Marcus scowled. ‘But he did not.’

‘I know that, excellence, and so do you. But no one else knows it. And are you and the governor not, after all, residuary heirs to Crassus’ fortunes?’

Marcus looked at me. ‘Are you suggesting. .?’

I smiled. ‘Excellence, I could not possibly advise. But there is one thing. I do have here a statement sealed by Lucius’ ring, promising amnesty to the slaves and payment for that librarium pavement.’

Marcus’ sudden laugh was joyous. ‘Libertus, I always knew I was a brilliant man. Employing you has proved it.’