The House of the Vestals

A WILL IS A WAY

Lucius Claudius was a sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, cherry-nosed nobleman with a fuzzy wreath of thinning red hair on his florid pate and a tiny, pouting mouth.

The name Claudius marked him not only as a nobleman but a patrician, hailing from that small group of old families who first made Rome great (or who at least fooled the rest of the Romans into thinking so). Not all patricians are rich; even the best families can go to seed over the centuries. But from the gold seal ring that Lucius wore, and from the other rings that kept it company-one of silver set with lapis, another of white gold with a bauble of flawless green glass-I suspected he was quite rich indeed. The rings were complemented by a gold necklace from which glittering glass baubles dangled amid the frizzled red hair that sprouted from his fleshy chest. His toga was of the finest wool, and his shoes were of exquisitely tooled leather.

He was the very image of a wealthy patrician, not handsome and not very bright-looking either, but impeccably groomed and dressed. His green eyes twinkled and his pouting lips pursed easily into a smile, betraying a man with a naturally pleasant personality. Wealthy, well born and with a cheerful disposition he struck me as a man who shouldn't have a worry in the world- except that he obviously did, or else he would never have come to see me.

We sat in the little garden of my house on the Esquiline Once upon a time, a man of Lucius's social status would never have been seen entering the house of Gordianus the Finder, but in recent years I seem to have acquired a certain respectability. I think the change began after my first case for the young advocate Cicero. Apparently Cicero has been saying nice things about me behind my back to his colleagues in the law courts, telling them that he actually put me up in his house once and it turned out that Gordianus, professional ferret and consorter with assassins notwithstanding, knew how to use a bowl and spoon and an indoor privy after all, and could even tell the difference between them.

Lucius Claudius filled the chair I had pulled up for him almost to overflowing. He shifted a bit nervously and toyed with his rings, then smiled sheepishly and held up his cup. "A bit more?" he said, making an ingratiatingly silly face.

"Of course." I clapped my hands. "Bethesda! More wine for my guest. The best, from the green clay bottle."

Bethesda rather sullenly obeyed, taking her time to rise from where she had been sitting cross-legged beside a pillar. She disappeared into the house. Her movements were as graceful as the unfolding of a flower. Lucius watched her with a lump in his throat. He swallowed hard.

"A very beautiful slave," he whispered.

"Thank you, Lucius Claudius." I hoped he wouldn't offer to buy her, as so many of my wealthier clients do. I hoped in vain.

"I don't suppose you'd consider-" he began.

"Alas, no, Lucius Claudius."

"But I was going to say-"

"I would sooner sell my extra rib."

"Ah." He nodded sagely, then wrinkled his fleshy brow. "What did you say?"

"Oh, a nonsense expression I picked up from Bethesda. According to her ancestors on her father's side, the first woman was fashioned from a rib bone taken from the first man, by a god called Jehovah. That is why some men seem to have an extra rib, with no match on the other side."

"Do they?" Lucius poked at his rib cage, but I think he was much too well padded to actually feel a rib.

I took a sip of wine and smiled. Bethesda had told me the Hebrew tale of the first man and woman many times; each time she tells it I clutch my side and pretend to bleat from pain, until she starts to pout and we both end up laughing. It seems to me a most peculiar tale, but no stranger than the stories her Egyptian mother told her about jackal-headed gods and crocodiles who walk upright. If it is true, this Hebrew god is worthy of respect. Not even Jupiter could claim to have created anything half as exquisite as Bethesda.

I had spent enough time putting my guest at ease. "Tell me, Lucius Claudius, what is it that troubles you?"

"You will think me very foolish…" he began. "No, I will not," I assured him, thinking I probably would. "Well, it was only the day before yesterday-or was it the day before that? It was the day after the Ides of Maius, of that I'm sure, whichever day that was-"

"I believe that was the day before yesterday," I said. Bethesda reappeared and stood in the shadows of the portico, awaiting a nod from me. I shook my head, telling her to wait. Another cup of wine might serve to loosen Lucius's tongue, but he was befuddled enough already. "And what transpired on the day before yesterday.?"

"I happened to be in this very neighborhood-well, not up here on the Esquiline Hill, but down in the valley, in the Subura-"

"The Subura is a fascinating neighborhood," I said, trying to imagine what attraction its tawdry streets might hold for a man who probably lived in a mansion on the Palatine Hill.Gaming houses, brothels, taverns and criminals for hire-these came to mind.

"You see," he sighed, "my days are very idle. I've never had a head for politics or finance, like others in my family; I feel useless in the Forum. I've tried living in the country, but I'm not much of a farmer; cows bore me. I don't like entertaining, either-strangers coming to dinner, all of them twice as clever as I am, and me, obliged to think up some way to amuse them- such a bother. I get bored rather easily, you see. So very, very bored."

"Yes?" I prompted, suppressing a yawn.

"So I go wandering about the city. Over to Tarentum to see the old people easing their joints in the hot springs. Out to the Field of Mars to watch the chariot racers train their horses. All up and down the Tiber, to the fish markets and the cattle markets and the markets with foreign goods. I like seeing other people at work; I relish the way they go about their business with such determination. I like watching women haggle with vendors, or listening to a builder argue with his masons, or noticing how the women who hang from brothel windows slam their shutters when a troupe of rowdy gladiators come brawling down the street. All these people seem so alive, so full of purpose, so-so very opposite of bored. Do you understand, Gordianus?"

"I think I do, Lucius Claudius."

"Then you'll understand why I love the Subura. What a neighborhood! One can almost smell the passion, the vice! The crowded tenements, the strange odors, the spectacle of humanity! The winding, narrow little streets, the dark, dank alleys, the sounds that drift down from the upper-story windows of strangers arguing, laughing, making love-what a mysterious and vital place the Subura is!"

"There's nothing so very mysterious about squalor," I suggested.

"Ah, but there is," insisted Lucius; and to him, I suppose, there was.

"Tell me about your adventure two days ago, on the day after the Ides."

"Certainly. But I thought you sent the girl for more wine?"

I clapped my hands. Bethesda stepped from the shadows. The sunlight glinted on her long, blue-black tresses. As she filled Lucius's cup he seemed unable to look up at her. He swallowed, smiled shyly and nodded vigorously at the quality of my best wine, which was probably not good enough to give to his slaves.

He continued.

"That morning, quite early, I happened to be strolling down one of the side streets off the main Subura Way, whistling a tune, noticing how spring had brought out all sorts of tiny flowers and shoots between the paving stones. Beauty asserts itself even here amid such squalor, I thought to myself, and I considered composing a poem, except that I'm not very good at poems-"

"And then something happened!" I prompted.

"Oh, yes. A man shouted down to me from a second-story window. He said, 'Please, citizen, come quick! A man is dying!' I hesitated. After all, he might have been trying to lure me into the building to rob me, or worse, and I didn't even have a slave with me for protection-I like going out alone, you see. Then another man appeared at the window beside the first, and said, 'Please, citizen, we need your help. The young man is dying and he's made out a will-he needs seven citizens to witness it ad we already have six. Won't you come up.?'

"Well, I did go up. It's not very often that anybody needs me for anything. How could I refuse? The apartment turned out to be a rather nicely furnished set of rooms, not at all shabby and certainly not menacing. In one of the rooms a man lay wrapped in a blanket upon a couch, moaning and shivering. An older man was attending to him, daubing his brow with a damp cloth. There were six others crowded into the room. No one seemed to know anyone else-it seemed we had each been summoned off the street, one by one."

"To witness the will of the dying man?"

"Yes. His name was Asuvius, from the town of Larinum. He was visiting the city when he was struck by a terrible malady. He lay on the bed, wet with sweat and trembling with fever. The illness had aged him terribly-according to his friend he wasn't yet twenty, yet his face was haggard and lined. Doctors had been summoned but had been of no use. Young Asuvius feared that he would die at any moment. Never having made a will-such a young man, after all-he had sent his friend to procure a wax tablet and a stylus. I didn't read the document as it was passed among us, of course, but I saw that it had been written by two different hands. He must have written the first few lines himself, in a faltering, unsteady hand; I suppose his friend finished the document for him. Seven witnesses were required, so to expedite matters the older man had simply called for citizens to come up from the street. While we watched, the poor lad scrawled his name with the stylus and pressed his seal ring into the wax."

"After which you signed and sealed it yourself?"

"Yes, along with the others. Then the older man thanked us and urged us to leave the room, so that young Asuvius could rest quietly before the end came. I don't mind telling you that I was weeping like a fountain as I stepped onto the street, and I wasn't the only one. I strolled about the Subura in a melancholy mood, thinking about that young man's fate, about his poor family back in Larinum and how they would take the news. I remember walking by a brothel situated at the end of the block, hardly a hundred paces from the dying man's room, and being struck by the contrast, the irony, that within those walls there lurked such pleasure and relief, while only a few doors down, the mouth of Pluto was opening to swallow a dying country lad. I remember thinking what a lovely poem such an irony might inspire-"

"No doubt it would, in the hands of a truly great poet," I acknowledged quickly. "So, did you ever learn what became of the youth?"

"A few hours later, after strolling about the city in a haze, I found myself back on that very street, as if the invisible hand of a god had guided me there. It was shortly after noon. The landlord told me that young Asuvius had died not long after I left. The older man-Oppianicus his name was, also of Larinum- had summoned the landlord to the room, weeping and lamenting, and had shown the landlord the body all wrapped up in a sheet. Later the landlord saw Oppianicus and another man from Larinum carry the body down the stairs and load it into a cart to take it to the embalmers outside the Esquiline Gate." Lucius sighed. "I tossed and turned all night, thinking about the fickleness of the Fates and the way that Fortune can turn her back even on a young man starting out in life. It made me think of all the days I've wasted, all the hours of boredom-"

Before he could conceive of yet another stillborn poem, I nodded to Bethesda to refill his cup and my own. "A sad tale, Lucius Claudius, but not uncommon. Life in the city is full of tragedies. Strangers die around us every day. We persevere."

"But that's just the point-young Asuvius isn't dead! I saw him just this morning, strolling down the Subura Way, smiling and happy! Oh, he still appeared a bit haggard, but he was certainly up and walking."

"Perhaps you were mistaken."

"Impossible. He was with the older man, Oppianicus. I called to them across the street. Oppianicus saw me-or at least I thought he did-but he took the younger man's arm and they disappeared into a shop on the corner. I followed after them, but a cart was passing in the street and the stupid driver almost ran me down. When I finally stepped into the shop they were gone. They must have passed through the shop into the cross street beyond and disappeared."

He sat back and sipped his wine. "I sat down in a shady spot by the public fountain and tried to think it through; then I remembered your name. I think it was Cicero who mentioned you to me, that young advocate who did a bit of legal work for me last year. I can't imagine who else might help me. What do you say, Gordianus? Am I mad? Or is it true that the shades of the dead walk abroad in the noonday sun?"

"The answer to both questions may be yes, Lucius Claudius, but that doesn't explain what's occurred. From what you've told me, I should think that something quite devious and all too human is afoot. But tell me, what is your concern? You don't know either of these men. What is your interest in this mystery?"

"Don't you understand, Gordianus, after all I've told you? I spend my days in idle boredom, peering into the windows of other people's lives. Now something has happened that actually titillates me. I would investigate the circumstances by myself, only"-the great bulk of his body shrank a bit-"I'm not exactly brave…"

I glanced at the glittering jewelry about his fingers and throat. "I should tell you, then, that I'm not exactly cheap."

"And I am not exactly poor."

Lucius insisted on accompanying me, though I warned him that if he feared boredom, my initial inquiries were likely to prove more excruciating than he could bear. Searching through the Subura for a pair of strangers from out of town was hardly my idea of excitement, but Lucius wanted to follow my every step. I could only shrug and allow it; if he wanted to trail after me like a dog, he was certainly paying well enough for the privilege.

I began at the house where the young man had supposedly died and where Lucius had witnessed the signing of his will. The landlord had nothing more to say than what he had already said to Lucius-until I nudged my client and indicated that he should rattle his coin purse. The musical jingling induced the landlord to sing.

The older man, Oppianicus, had been renting the room for more than a month. He and a circle of younger friends from Larinum were much given to debauchery-the landlord could deduce that much from the sour smell of spilled wine that wafted from their room, from the raucous gambling parties they held, and from the steady parade of prostitutes who visited them from the brothel down the street.

"And the younger man, Asuvius, the one who died?" I asked.

"Yes, what of him?"

"He was equally debauched?"

The landlord shrugged. "You know how it is-these young men from small towns, especially the lads who have a bit of money, they come to Rome and they want to live a little."

"Sad, that this one should die, instead."

"That has nothing to do with me," the landlord protested. "I keep a safe house. It wasn't as if the boy was murdered in one of my rooms. He took sick and died."

"Did he look particularly frail?"

"Not at all, but debauchery can ruin any man's health."

"Not in a month's time."

"When illness strikes, it strikes; neither man nor god can lengthen a man's time once the Fates have measured out the thread of his life."

"Wise words," I agreed. I pulled a few coins from Lucius's purse and slapped them into the man's waiting palm.

The brothel down the street was one of the Subura's more respectable, which is to say more expensive, houses of entertainment. Several well-dressed slaves lingered outside the door, waiting for their masters to come out. Inside, the floor of the little foyer was decorated with a black and white mosaic of Priapus pursuing a wood nymph. Rich tapestries of red and green covered the walls.

The clientele was not shoddy, either. While we waited for the master of the house, a customer passed us on his way to the door. He was at least a minor magistrate, to judge from his gold seal ring, and he seemed to know Lucius, at whom he cast a puzzled gaze.

"You-Lucius Claudius-here in Priapus's Palace.?"

"Yes, and what of it, Gaius Fabius?"

"But I'd never have dreamed you had a lustful bone in your body!"

Lucius sniffed at the ceiling. "I happen to be here on important business, if you don't mind."

"Oh, I see. But of course. Don't let me interrupt you!" The man suppressed a laugh until he was out the door. I heard him braying in the street.

"Harrumph! Let him laugh and gossip about me behind my back," said Lucius. "I shall compose a satirical poem for my revenge, so witheringly spiteful that it shall render that buffoon too limp to visit this-what did he call this place?"

"Priapus's Palace," piped an unctuously friendly voice. The master of the house suddenly appeared between us and slid his arms around our shoulders. "And what pleasures may I offer to amuse two such fine specimens of Roman manhood?" The man smiled blandly at me, then at Lucius, then at the baubles that decorated Lucius's neck and fingers. He licked his lips and slithered to the center of the room, turned and clapped his hands. A file of scantily clad women began to enter the room.

"Actually," I said hurriedly, "we've come on behalf of a friend."

"Oh?"

"A regular client of your establishment in recent days, I believe. A young visitor to Rome, named Asuvius."

From the corner of my eye I saw a sudden movement among the girls. One of them, a honey blonde, tripped and thrust out her hands for balance. She turned a pair of startled blue eyes in my direction.

"Oh yes, that handsome lad from Larinum," gushed our host. "We haven't seen him for at least a day and a half-I was beginning to wonder what had become of him!"

"We're here on his behalf," I said, thinking it might not be a lie, when all was said and done. "He sent us to fetch his favorite girl-but I can't seem to remember her name. Can you remember it, Lucius?"

Lucius gave a start and blinked his eyes, which were trained on the girls and threatened to pop from their sockets. "Me? Oh no, I can't remember a thing."

A look of pure avarice crossed our host's face. "His favorite? Ah, let me think… yes, that would be Merula, most definitely Merula!" Another clap of his hands fetched a slave who put an ear to his master's whispering lips, then ran from the room. A moment later Merula appeared, a stunning Ethiopian so tall that she had to bow her head to pass through the doorway. Her skin was the color of midnight and her eyes flashed like shooting stars.

Lucius was visibly impressed and reached for his purse, but I stayed his hand. It occurred to me that our host was offering us his most expensive property, not the one which had necessarily been the favorite of young Asuvius.

"No, no," I said, "I'm sure I would have remembered a name like Merula."

"Ah, and she sings like a blackbird, as well," interjected out host.

"Nevertheless, I think we were meant to fetch that one." I nodded at the honey blonde, who gazed back at me with apprehensive blue eyes.

The tavern across the street was pleasantly cool and dark, and almost deserted. Columba sat within the cloak Lucius had thrown over her transparent gown, looking pensive.

"The day before yesterday?" she frowned.

"Yes, the day after the Ides of Maius," offered Lucius, certain at last that he had his chronology straight, and eager to help.

"And you say that you saw Asuvius in his room, deathly ill?" She continued to frown.

"So it appeared, when this man Oppianicus called me up to the room." Lucius leaned on one elbow, gazing at her raptly and ignoring his cup of wine. He was not used to being so near such a beautiful girl, I could tell.

"And this was in the morning?" Columba asked.

"Yes, quite early in the morning."

"But Asuvius was with me!"

"Can you be sure of that?"

"Certainly, because he had slept the whole night with me, at my room at the Palace, and we didn't wake until quite late that morning. Even then, we didn't leave the room…"

"Ah, youth!" I sighed.

She blushed faintly. "And we stayed in my room to eat our midday meal. So you see, you must have the days mixed up, or else-"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's the oddest thing. Some of Asuvius's freedmen were by the Palace only yesterday, asking for him. They seemed not to know where he was. They seemed rather worried." She looked at me, suddenly suspicious. "What is your interest in Asuvius?"

"I'm not really sure," I said truthfully. "Does it matter?" I took a coin from Lucius's purse and slid it across the table to her. She looked at it coolly, then slipped her tiny white hand over it.

"I should hate it if anything has really happened to Asuvius," she said quietly. "He really is a sweet boy. Do you know, he told me it was his very first time, when he came to the Palace a month ago? I could believe it, too, with all the fumbling, and all the-" She broke off with a wistful sigh, laughed sadly, then sighed again. "I shall hate it if it's true that's he taken sick and died so suddenly."

"Oh, but he hasn't," said Lucius. "That's why we're here; that's what we don't understand. I saw him alive and well with my own eyes, this very morning!"

"But then, how can you say he was deathly ill two days ago, and that the landlord saw his body taken away in a cart?" Columba frowned. "I tell you, he was with me the whole morning. Asuvius was never sick at all; you must be confused."

"Then you last saw him on the day before yesterday, the same day that Lucius Claudius was called up to witness the lad's will," I said. "Tell me, Columba, and this might be very important: was he wearing his seal ring?"

"He was wearing very little at all," she said frankly.

"Columba, that is not an answer."

"Well, of course, he wears his ring always. Doesn't every citizen? I'm sure he was wearing it that morning."

"You seem awfully certain. Surely he wasn't signing documents here in your room?"

She looked at me coolly, then spoke very slowly. "Sometimes, when a man and woman are being intimate, there is cause to notice that one of them happens to be wearing a ring. Perhaps one feels a certain discomfort… or a bit of a snag. Yes, I'm sure he was wearing his ring."

I nodded, satisfied. "When did he leave you?"

"After we ate our midday meal. Of course, after we ate, we… shall we say it was two hours after noon? His friends from Larinum came to collect him."

"Not his freedmen?"

"No. Asuvius doesn't have much use for servants, he says they only get in his way. He's always sending them off on silly errands to keep them away from him. He says they'll only carry gossip back to his sisters in Larinum."

"And to his parents, as well, I suppose?"

"Alas, Asuvius has no parents. His mother and father died in a fire only a year ago. It was a hard year that followed, having to take on his father's duties in such a hurry, and after such a terrible tragedy. All the big farms he owns, and all the slaves! All the paperwork, counting up figures so he'll know what he's worth. To hear him talk, you'd think a rich man has more work to do than a poor one!"

"So it may seem, to a young lad who'd rather be footloose and carefree," I noted.

"This trip to Rome was to be his holiday, after such a hard year of grieving and labor. It was his friends who suggested the trip."

"Ah, the same friends who came for him the day before yesterday."

"Yes, crusty old Oppianicus and his young friend, Vulpinus."

"Vulpinus? A peculiar name. Has he a snout and a tail?"

"Oh, his real name is Marcus Avillius, but all the girls at the Palace call him Vulpinus on account of his foxy disposition. Always nosing into things, never seems to be completely honest, even when there's no point in lying. Quite a charmer, though, and not bad looking."

"I know the sort," I said.

"He plays a sort of older brother to Asuvius, since Asuvius has no brothers-brought him to the city, arranged for a place for him to stay, showed him how to have a good time."

"I see. And two days ago, as they were leaving Priapus's Palace, did Oppianicus and the Fox give any hint as to where they were taking young Asuvius?"

"More than a hint. They said they were off to the gardens."

"What gardens?"

"Why, the ones outside the Esquiline Gate. Oppianicus and Vulpinus had been telling Asuvius how splendid they are, with splashing fountains and flowers in full bloom-Maius is a perfect month to visit them. Asuvius was very eager to go. There are so many sights here in the city that he hasn't yet seen, having spent so much of his time, well, enjoying indoor pleasures." Columba smiled a bit crookedly. "He's hardly stepped outside the Subura. I don't think he's even been down to see the Forum!"

"Ah, yes, and of course a young visitor from Larinum would hardly want to miss seeing the famous gardens outside the Esquiline Gate."

"I suppose not, from the way Oppianicus and Vulpinus described them-leafy green tunnels and beautiful pools, meadows of blossoms and lovely statues. I wish I could see them myself, but the master hardly ever lets me out of the house except for business. Would you believe that I've been in Rome for almost two years and I'd never even heard of the gardens?"

"I can believe that," I said gravely.

"But Asuvius said if the place turned out to be as special as his friends claimed, he might take me there himself in a few days, as a treat." She brightened a bit. I sighed.

We escorted her back to Priapus's Palace. Her owner was surprised to see her back so soon, but he made no complaint about the fee.

Outside, the street darkened for a moment as a cloud obscured the sun. "No matter whose account is accurate, young Asuvius most assuredly did not die in his bed the day before yesterday," I said. "Either he was with Columba, very much alive and well, or, if indeed you saw him lying feverish in his apartment, he recovered and you saw him on the street this morning. Still, I begin to fear for the lad. I fear for him most desperately."

"Why?" asked Lucius.

"You know as well as I, Lucius Claudius, that there are no gardens outside the Esquiline Gate!"

One passes from the city of the living through the Esquiline Gate into the city of the dead.

On the left side of the road is the public necropolis of Rome, where the mass graves of slaves and the modest tombs of the Roman poor are crowded close. Long ago, when Rome was young, the lime pits were discovered nearby. Just as the city of the living sprang up around the river and the Forum and the markets, so the city of the dead sprang up around the lime pits and the crematoria and the temples where corpses are purified.

On the right side of the road are the public refuse pits, where the residents of the Subura and surrounding neighbor' hoods dump their trash. All manner of waste lies heaped in the sand pits-broken bits of crockery and furniture, rotting scraps of food, discarded garments soiled and torn beyond even a beggar's use. Here and there the custodians light small fires to consume the debris, then rake fresh sand over the smoldering embers.

No matter in which direction one looks, there are certainly no gardens outside the Esquiline Gate, unless one counts the isolated flowers that spring up among the moldering debris of the trash heaps, or the scraggly vines which wind their way about the old, neglected tombs of the forgotten dead. I began to suspect that Oppianicus and the Fox had a cruel sense of humor indeed.

A glance at Lucius told me that he was having second thoughts about accompanying me on this part of my investigation. The Subura and its vices might seem colorful and quaint, but even Lucius could find no charm in the necropolis and the rubbish tips. He wrinkled his nose and batted a swarm of flies from his face, but he did not turn back.

We passed back and forth between the right side of the road and the left, questioning the few people we met about three strangers they might have seen two days before-an older man, a foxy young rogue, and a mere lad. The tenders of the dead waved us aside, having no patience to deal with the living; the custodians of the trash heaps shrugged and shook their heads.

We stood at the edge of the sand pits, surveying a prospect that might have looked like Hades, if there were a sun to shine through the hazy smoke of Hades onto its smoldering wastes. Suddenly, there was a low hissing noise behind us. Lucius started. My hand jumped to my dagger.

The maker of the noise was a shuffling, stooped derelict who had been watching us from behind a heap of smoldering rubbish.

"What do you want?" I asked, keeping my hand close to the dagger.

The lump of filthy hair and rags swayed a bit, and two milky eyes stared up at me. "I hear you're looking for someone," the man finally said.

"Perhaps."

"Then perhaps I can help you."

"Speak plainly."

"I know where you'll find the young man!"

"What young man are you talking about?"

The figure stooped and looked up at me sidelong. "I heard you asking one of the workers a moment ago. You didn't see me, but I saw you, and I listened. I heard you asking about the three men who were by here two days ago, the older man and the boy and the one between. I know where the boy is!"

"Show us."

The creature held out a hand so stained and weathered it looked like a stump of wood. Lucius drew back, appalled, but reached for his purse. I stayed his hand.

"After you show us," I said.

The thing hissed at me. It stamped its foot and growled. Finally it turned and waved for us to follow.

I grabbed Lucius's arm and whispered in his ear. "You mustn't come. Such a creature is likely to lure us into a trap. Look at the jewels you wear, the purse you carry. Go to the crematoria, where you'll be safe. I'll follow the man alone."

Lucius looked at me, his lips pursed, his eyes open wide. "Gordianus, you must be joking. No power of man or god will stop me from seeing whatever this man has to show us!"

The creature shambled and lurched over the rubbish heaps and drifts of dirty sand. We strode deeper and deeper into the wastes. The heaps of ash and rubble rose higher around us, hid' ing us from the road. The creature led us around the flank of a low sandy hill. An orange haze engulfed us. An acrid cloud of smoke swirled around us. I choked. Lucius reached for his throat and began to cough. The hot breath of an open flame blew against my face.

Through the murk I saw the derelict silhouetted against the fire. He bobbed his head up and down and pointed at something in the flames.

"What is it?" I wheezed. "I see nothing."

Lucius gave a start. He seized my arm and pointed. There, within the inferno, amid the indiscriminate heap of fiery rubbish, I glimpsed the remains of a human body.

The flaming heap collapsed upon itself, sending out a spray of orange cinders. I covered my face with my sleeve and put my arm around Lucius's shoulder. Together we fled from the blazing heat and smoke. The derelict scampered after us, his long brown arm extended, palm up.

"There is no proof that the body the derelict showed us was that of Asuvius," I said. "It might have been another derelict, for all we know. The truth is beyond proving. That is the crux of the matter." took a long sip of wine. Night had descended on Rome. Crickets chirred in my garden. Bethesda sat beneath the portico nearby, beside a softly glowing lamp. She pretended to stitch a torn tunic, but listened to every word. Lucius Claudius sat beside me, staring at the moon's reflection in his cup.

"Tell me, Gordianus, how exactly do you explain the discrepancies between what I saw and the tale that Columba told us? What really happened the day after the Ides of Maius?"

"I should think that the sequence of events is clear."

"Even so-"

"Very well, this is how I would tell the story. There was once a wealthy young orphan in a town called Larinum who chose his friends very poorly. Two of those friends, an old rogue and a young predator, talked him into going to Rome for a long holiday. The three of them took up residence in one of the seedier parts of town and proceeded to indulge in just the sorts of vices that are likely to lull a green country lad into a vulnerable stupor. Away from the boy's watchful sisters and the town gossips in Larinum, the Fox and old Oppianicus were free to hatch their scheme.

"On a morning when Asuvius was dallying with his favorite prostitute, the Fox pretended to be the boy and took to his bed, feigning a mortal illness. Oppianicus summoned strangers off the street to act as witnesses to a will-people who wouldn't know Asuvius from Alexander. Oppianicus made at least one mistake, but he got away with it."

"What was that?"

"Someone must have asked the dying man's age. Oppianicus, without thinking, said he was not yet twenty; you told me so. True enough, if he meant Asuvius. But it was the Fox who lay on the bed pretending to be Asuvius, and I gather that the Fox is well beyond twenty. Even so, you yourself ascribed the discrepancy to illness-'haggard and lined,' you said he looked, as if terribly aged from his sickness. The other witnesses probably thought the same thing. People will go to great lengths to make the evidence of their own eyes conform to whatever someone tells them is the truth."

Lucius frowned. "Why was the will in two different handwritings?"

"Yes, I remember you mentioning that. The Fox began it, feigning such a weak hand that he couldn't finish it; such a ploy would help to explain why his signature would not be recognizable as the hand of Asuvius-anyone would think it was the scrawl of a man nearly dead."

"But the Fox pressed his own seal ring into the wax," protested Lucius. "I saw him do it. It couldn't have been the true seal of Asuvius, who was with Columba, wearing his ring."

"I'll come to that. Now, once the will was witnessed all around, you and the others were shunted from the room. Oppianicus wound the Fox up in a sheet, tore his hair and worked tears into his eyes, then called for the landlord."

"Who saw a corpse!"

"Who thought he saw a corpse. All he saw was a body in a sheet. He thought Asuvius had died of a sudden illness; he took no pains to examine the corpse."

"But later he saw two men taking the body away in a cart."

"He saw Oppianicus and the Fox, who had changed back into his clothes, carrying out something wrapped up in a sheet- a sack of millet, for all we know."

"Ah, and once they were out of sight they got rid of the cart and the millet and went to fetch Asuvius from the brothel."

"Yes, for their appointed stroll through the 'gardens.' The derelict witnessed the rest, how they ushered the confused boy to a secluded spot where the Fox strangled him to death, how they stripped his body and hid his corpse amid the rubbish. That was when they stole the seal ring from his finger. Later they must have rubbed the Fox's seal from the wax and applied the true seal of Asuvius to the will."

"There's a law against that," said Lucius, without much conviction.

"Yes, the Cornelian law, enacted by our esteemed Senate just three years ago. Why do you think they passed such a law? Because falsifying wills has become as commonplace as senators picking their noses in public!"

"So the man I saw with Oppianicus in the street was indeed the same man whose will I witnessed-"

"Yes, but it was the Fox all along, not Asuvius."

Lucius nodded. "And so the scheme is complete; the false will cheats Asuvius's sisters and other relatives, no doubt, and leaves a tidy fortune to his dear friends Oppianicus and Marcus Avillius-also known as the Fox, for good reason."

I nodded.

"We must do something!"

"Yes, but what? I suppose you could bring a suit against the culprits and attempt to prove that the will is fraudulent. That should take up a great deal of your time and money; if you think you suffer from boredom now, wait until you've spent a month or two bustling from clerk to clerk filing actions down in the Forum. And if Oppianicus and the Fox find an advocate half as crafty as they are, you'll likely as not be laughed out of court."

"Forget the fraudulent will. These men are guilty of coldblooded murder!"

"But will you be able to prove it, without a corpse and with no reliable witness? Even if you could find him again, our derelict friend is not the sort of man whose testimony would impress a Roman jury."

"You're telling me that we've come to the end of it?"

"I'm telling you that if you wish to proceed any further, what you need is an advocate, not Gordianus the Finder."

Ten days later, Lucius Claudius came knocking at my door again.

I was more than a little surprised to see him. Having set me on the trail of young Asuvius and having followed me to its end, I expected him to quickly lose interest and lapse into his customary boredom. Instead he informed me that he had been doing a bit of legwork on his own.

He invited me for a stroll. While we walked he talked of nothing in particular, but I noticed that we were drawing near to the street where the whole story had begun. Lucius remarked that he was thirsty. We stepped into the tavern across from Priapus's Palace.

"I've been thinking a great deal about what you said, Gordianus, about Roman justice. You're right; we can't trust the courts anymore. Advocates twist words and laws to their own purposes, pervert the sentiments of jurors, resort to intimidation and outright bribery. Still, true justice must be worth pursuing. I keep thinking of the flames, and the sight of that young man's body, thrown into a rubbish pit and burned to ashes. By the way, Oppianicus and the Fox are back in town."

"Oh? Did they ever leave?"

"They were on their way back to Larinum when I saw them that day, before I came to you. Oppianicus made a great production of showing Asuvius's will to anyone who cared to look, then filed it with the clerks in the forum at Larinum. So my messengers to Larinum tell me."

"Messengers?"

"Yes, I thought I would get in touch with Asuvius's sisters. A band of his freedmen arrived in Rome just this morning."

"I see. And Oppianicus and the Fox are here already."

"Yes. Oppianicus is staying with friends in a house over on the Aventine Hill. But the Fox is just across the street, in the apartment where they played their little charade."

I turned and looked out the window. From where we sat, I could see the ground-floor door of the tenement and the window above, the same window from which Lucius had been summoned to witness the will. The shutters were drawn.

"What a neighborhood!" said Lucius. "Some days I think that almost anything could happen in the Subura." He craned his neck and looked over my shoulder. From up the street I heard the noise of an approaching mob.

There were twenty of them or more, brandishing knives and clubs. They gathered outside the tenement, where they banged their clubs against the door and demanded entrance. When the door did not open, they broke it down and streamed inside.

The shutters were thrown back. A face appeared at the window above. If the Fox was handsome and charming, as Columba had told us, it was impossible to tell at that moment. His eyes were bulging in panic and all the blood had drained from his cheeks. He stared down at the street and swallowed hard, as if working up his courage to jump. He hesitated a moment too long hands gripped his shoulders and yanked him back into the room.

A moment later he was thrust stumbling from the doorway. The mob surrounded him and hounded him up the street. Vendors and idlers scattered and disappeared into doorways. Windows flew open and curious faces peered down.

"Hurry," said Lucius, throwing back the last of his wine, "or we'll miss the fun. The Fox has been run out of his hole, and the hounds will pursue him all the way to the Forum."

We hurried into the street. As we passed Priapus's Palace I looked up. Columba stood at a window, gazing down in confusion and excitement. Lucius waved to her, flashing an enormous grin. She gave a start and smiled back at him.

He cupped his hands and shouted, "Come with us!" When she bit her lip in hesitation, he waved with both hands.

Columba vanished from the window and a moment later was running up the street to join us. Her master appeared at the door, gesticulating and stamping his foot. Lucius turned and shook his purse at the man.

Asuvius's freedmen roared all the way to the Forum. The outer circle banged their clubs against walls and passing wagons; the inner circle kept the Fox closely hemmed in. They took up a chant. "Jus-tice! Jus-tice! Jus-tice!" By the time we reached the Forum, the Fox was looking quite run-to-earth indeed.

The gang of freedman shoved the Fox around and around in a dizzying circle. At last we came to the tribunal of the commissioners, whose most neglected duty is keeping order in the streets, and who also, incidentally, conduct investigations preliminary to bringing charges for crimes of violence. Beneath the shade of a portico, the unsuspecting commissioner for the Subura, Quintus Manilius, sat squinting at a stack of parchments. He looked up in alarm when the Fox came staggering before him. The freedmen, excited to fever pitch by their parade through the streets, all began speaking at once, creating an indecipherable roar.

Manilius wrinkled his brow. He banged his fist against the table and raised his hand. Everyone fell silent.

Even then I thought that the Fox would get the best of his users. He had only to stand upon his rights as a citizen and to keep his mouth shut. But the wicked are often cowards, even the coldest heart may be haunted by crime, and human foxes as often as not step into traps of their own devising.

The Fox rushed up to the bench, weeping. "Yes! Yes, I murdered him, it's true! Oppianicus made me do it! I would never have come up with such a plot on my own. It was Oppianicus's idea from the start, to create the false will and then murder Asuvius! If you don't believe me, call Oppianicus before this bench and force him to tell you the truth!"

I turned and gazed at Lucius Claudius, who looked just the same as he had always looked-sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, cherry-nosed-but who no longer looked to me the least bit foolish or dimwitted. His eyes glinted oddly. He looked a bit frightening, in fact, and terribly sure of himself, which is to say that he looked like what he was, a Roman noble. On his face was a smile such as great poets must smile when they have finished a magnum opus.

The rest of the tale is both good and bad mixed together.

I wish that I could report that Oppianicus and the Fox received their just desserts, but alas, Roman justice prevailed- which is to say that the honorable commissioner Quintus Manilius proved not too honorable to take a bribe from Oppianicus; that at least is what the Forum gossips say. Manilius first announced he would bring a charge of murder against the Fox and Oppianicus, then suddenly dropped the case. Lucius Claudius was bitterly disappointed. I advised him to take heart; from my own experience, villains like Oppianicus and the Fox eventually come to a bad end, though many others may suffer before they reach it.

Perhaps not coincidentally, at about the same time that the murder charges were dropped, the fraudulent will went missing in Larinum. In consequence, the property of the late Asuvius was divided between his surviving blood relations. Oppianicus and the Fox did not profit from his death.

The owner of Priapus's Palace was furious with Columba for leaving the establishment without his permission, and threatened to chastise her by putting hot coals to her feet, whereupon Lucius Claudius offered to buy her on the spot. I have no doubt that she is well treated in her new household. Lucius may not be the endlessly virile young man that Asuvius was, but that has not kept him from acting like a young man in love.

These days, I see Lucius Claudius quite often in the Forum, in the company of reasonably honest advocates like Cicero and Hortensius. Rome can always use another honest man in the Forum. He tells me that he recently completed a book of love poems and is thinking of running for office. He holds occasional dinner parties and spends his quiet time in the country, overseeing his farms and vineyards.

As the Etruscans used to say, it is an ill will that doesn't bring someone good fortune. The unfortunate Asuvius may not have left a will, after all, but I think that Lucius Claudius was his beneficiary nonetheless.