The Legatus Mystery

Chapter Twenty-two

How long we might have stood there, gazing stupidly at the horror on the floor, I cannot say, but we were interrupted by a sudden noise. A thunderous knocking sound, a bellow, shouts, and then — amazingly — a hush. Even the murmur of the crowd had ceased.

Meritus shot me a glance. ‘Listen!’ But we had no need of his instruction to make us strain our ears. Even Scribonius had ceased his chant to hear.

Fresh noises now. The clank of hobnails on the temple court, the measured tread of marching feet. I knew, with a sudden lifting of the heart, what it meant. Junio and the soldiers had arrived! Only a contingent of armed guard could have brought about that immediate compliance from the crowd, and gained such instant admittance from the slaves who held the gate.

As I looked out through the open doorway of the shrine they came into sight — a dozen soldiers under the command of a small, stocky man. He seemed to have forsworn torches and had marched them in darkness across the court, and was now drawing them up into a small formation, three abreast, beside the outer altar. The light of our torches glinted on their armour, on their drawn swords, and on the helmet, with the sideways plume, of the centurion in charge.

He finished barking his commands and stumped to the doorway of the shrine. But there he stopped. The army are, by virtue of their oath, obliged to worship the Imperial gods, and he seemed to feel that some gesture of respect was needed. Rather awkwardly, he pulled off his helmet, revealing a short-cropped head and swarthy face.

‘Well then,’ he said, in the deep guttural Latin that betrayed his Rhineland origins, ‘what have we here? Which of you is Libertus?’

Hirsus found his voice again, and pointed at me triumphantly. ‘That’s him!’ he cried in a high, cracked tone, as if the appearance of the guard had given him sudden confidence. ‘He’s the one who’s brought all this about! Do your duty, officer. He has disturbed the safety of the state — brought down the anger of the gods — and now the crowds are calling for his death. Under the old laws of popular acclaim, he must be tried before the people’s court, or at least brought before the magistrates.’ He looked about him, as if pleased by his own display of bravery.

‘I have orders from Marcus Septimus to report to you, citizen!’ The officer took a step towards me and in doing so appeared to see, for the first time, the raddled pile of bones on the floor. He looked aghast. ‘Dear Jupiter. What in Dis is going on here? A dead body at the temple, I was told. Surely, by all the gods in Gaul, this can’t be it?’

‘It is, it is!’ That was Hirsus again, babbling now as if he could not stop. ‘This is immortal vengeance, officer. There was a body here — a proper body, not this heap of bones. I saw it with my own eyes, earlier. And so did both these other seviri here. And now see what the gods have done to it.’

The centurion paled. He backed away a little, and I saw his fingers tighten on his sword-hilt. ‘Is this true?’ He rounded on the priests. ‘You saw it, both of you?’

‘Not clearly.’ Only a tremor in Meritus’s voice betrayed the effort of his self-control.

Scribonius had lost some of his dry pedantic drawl. ‘I did. I saw it,’ he said urgently. ‘Not the whole body, just a huddled cloak — but it was a body — I could see the leg. And the ankles underneath the robe.’

I looked at him, appalled. If that was true. .!

‘Sorcery!’ The centurion let go of his sword and backed away. This is outside my powers, his expression said, as clearly as if he’d uttered the words. ‘Did anybody else see anything?’

‘I did, master!’ That was Junio’s voice.

I looked over and saw him for the first time, standing in the darkness at the entrance to the shrine, behind Hirsus and the smaller of the slaves. He could have come no further if he’d tried. There was not room in the little temple for us all.

‘Junio!’

They stood back then, to make room for him, and he made his way forward, further into the shrine. Even then he hung back at the door, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable — this was not a place where freemen often came, much less humble pavement-makers’ slaves. And only then as wretched penitents, come to present their prayers and offerings. No wonder Junio looked hesitant.

‘Well?’ the centurion demanded, more cocksure now that he had someone whom he could safely bully. He seized Junio by the arm and pushed him forward so roughly that he fell on his knees beside the macabre thing on the floor.

Junio looked from the pile of bones to me. ‘It is as I told you earlier, master — there was a dead body here at the temple. That is all I know. As soon as I discovered it I came to find you, and you sent me into the town to fetch the guard.’

The centurion aimed a half-hearted kick at him. ‘Is that the man you saw? That’s what we want to know. Speak up, slave, or we’ll find ways of making you.’

I could see Junio thinking how best to answer this. The wrong answer, or anything that could be construed as blasphemy, could quickly have him whipped, and with the crowd baying for my own imprisonment there was little I could do to protect him.

‘It is impossible to know,’ he said at last. ‘This could be anyone, if the gods have had a hand in it. But the body that I saw didn’t look like this. And it wasn’t wearing a cloak, either. It looked more like — I don’t know — a priest. And if it’s the same body, I don’t know what it’s doing here. It was outside, when I saw it — lying behind the temple in the grove!’

‘Nonsense!’ Hirsus’s voice had become a squeak. ‘This is some story you have devised, to save your wretched skin. And your master’s too, no doubt. I must have been in the grove immediately before you — you followed me into the high priest’s house — and I saw nothing.’ Everyone was staring at him, and his pale face flushed. ‘Ask Marcus Septimus,’ he said. ‘Ask the high priest, ask anyone.’ He looked at me with loathing in his eyes. ‘Ask this citizen, he was there!’

‘It’s true that I was in the high priest’s house,’ I said. ‘And Junio followed Hirsus in. But if my slave says that there was something in the grove, then I believe him.’

‘Then he must have put it there himself!’ Hirsus retorted. ‘What was he doing in the temple court at all? I didn’t see him there.’

‘Nor did I,’ said Meritus thoughtfully.

‘I thought I saw someone in the grove,’ Scribonius supplied. ‘After Hirsus had found the body here. When you had gone with the attendant, sevir, to get the key and lock the shrine. I thought nothing of it until now — just supposed that it was one of the temple slaves going over by the back path to the pontifex. They were scurrying everywhere, at the time — taking messages about the procession that he’d ordered. But that person was moving, so it couldn’t have been the body that Libertus’s servant saw — unless, of course, he murdered him himself.’

‘Perhaps there never was a body,’ Meritus said wearily — and then, as Junio started to protest: ‘Perhaps it was a vision. Or the body disappeared again. Perhaps what you saw was the spirit of this unfortunate man here, coming to haunt his bones. Anything is possible, with what’s been happening! Jove only knows what we have done to anger the gods so much.’

‘It’s his fault!’ Hirsus said, gesturing to me. ‘Him and his accursed slave. The crowds are right, these terrors follow him around. And you know what you saw in the auguries.’

They were all looking at me again, openly suspicious. It was as well Marcus had sent instruction that the centurion should report specifically to me, otherwise I believe I would have been seized immediately and marched away to jail. And as for my unfortunate slave, he would have been lucky to survive the night, subject as he was to a lower court.

I tried to remain rational and calm. ‘Of course, the fact that Hirsus didn’t see a body doesn’t prove it wasn’t there.’ Hirsus looked angry at this suggestion of untruthfulness, and I added carefully, ‘After all, his mind was full of what he’d witnessed here, and he had an important errand to perform.’

Hirsus subsided, but he still looked sulky and resentful.

‘There’s one way to resolve it,’ I went on. ‘Let Junio show you where the body was.’

There was a stir among the seviri.

‘A troop of soldiers, in the sacred grove!’ Scribonius exclaimed. ‘Trampling on holy places, and profaning everything with their impious hands. It will take a year to cleanse it all again!’

‘You heard Hirsus, citizen,’ the chief sevir said. ‘There was nothing there. No body. Nothing to be seen. And, as Scribonius says-’

‘Even if it is not there now, there may be signs of where it was,’ I insisted. ‘And if it was as bloodstained as you say. . what is it, Junio?’

He was still kneeling on the floor, signalling frantically that he wished to speak, though in company he did not dare to interrupt.

‘Your pardon, master.’ He was frowning now. ‘There was no blood on the body that I found. At least, none that I could see. But, master, look. .’ He gestured with his hand. ‘Bring the torch a little closer here.’

I was still holding the brand and I did as he suggested.

‘There!’ he said. ‘A smudge of blood. Over there, beyond the altar, see?’

There was. A smear of blood. Not a splash, as one might have supposed, given the bloodstained mass that was the cloak, but a smudge, a mark as if something bloody had been moved. I brought the light closer so that I could see. Everyone crowded behind me. There was another mark, and another yet, hard to distinguish in the flickering light. I moved a little closer with my torch, and there it was, fainter but just discernible, a trail between the altar and the inner door. And the bolt on the rear door was unsecured again.

Any doubts that all this might be something supernatural vanished. That bolt was open because someone had gone through the door and not been able to secure it again. And the blood had left a trail, however faint. So what about the earlier body, then? I glanced up at the three Imperial priests and at the giant statue at my side. It was too early to be sure, but a train of thought had just occurred to me. Something that I could test out by degrees.

I straightened up, and signalled my slave to stand. ‘There you are, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Proof positive, I think, that it was not the gods that moved that corpse you saw.’

‘Right!’ the centurion said. He seized my torch. ‘You, slave’ (that was Junio) ‘come with me and show me where you saw this corpse of yours. Pardon me, seviri, for going through the back door, but I think it’s necessary now. I’m sorry if it violates the shrine. I won’t bring my soldiers this way.’ He raised his voice. ‘You, in the first rank, stand guard here. The others, meet me at the back and help me search. Bring a torch-bearer with you.’ And he was through the inner door and gone, with Junio at his heels, leaving me with the three seviri in the shadowed shrine.

Scribonius was aghast. ‘Look, Chief Sevir Meritus, what he has done! Is there no end to blasphemy? And for what? What will he find if the gods have done these things?’ He looked helplessly at the ghastly remnants on the floor.

I shook my head. ‘A trail of blood, an open door, and someone seen moving in the grove? Does that sound like an immortal hand to you?’

Sevir Meritus was looking at me fixedly. ‘So you suspect. .?’

I met his eyes. ‘I think there is a human intelligence at work. I suspected as much for some time, but now I’m sure of it. Someone is setting out to terrify.’

The sevir looked appalled. ‘But why? And who?’

I shook my head. ‘That’s what I can’t answer yet, sevir. Someone who wants to get rid of me, I think. Someone who started these rumours in the town.’

The big priest looked at me, and glanced at the outer door, where the remainder of the soldiers still stood guard. He dropped his voice warningly, as though afraid that they would hear. ‘There is some truth in what they say, you know. I read the auguries this afternoon, and after what you did in the grove. .’ He did not finish the sentence, but he hardly needed to. I had been judged nefas, impious and accursed.

‘So anyone who killed me need hardly fear the law? Of course that’s true,’ I said. ‘That’s why the crowd felt confident in hunting me. But who passed that news on to the town? Not you, sevir — you have not left the temple. So who did?’

He seemed relieved that I had eliminated him, and he hastened to be helpful as he said, ‘No one has left the temple, citizen. Only yourself, the pontifex, and Marcus Septimus. Oh, and some of the temple slaves, of course. We have all been far too busy with our duties here. Even the legate’s messenger did not come into the temple — he visited the high priest in his house.’ He shook his head. ‘Great Augustus, citizen, I do see what you mean. How did the news get out into the-’

He was interrupted by a shout from the darkness behind us, and a moment later a foot soldier came running up, his sword clanking on his armour as he came.

‘You had better come, gentlemen,’ he managed breathlessly. ‘We have found something by the outer wall.’

Meritus glanced at me, and as one man we followed him. Scribonius and the torch-bearer were not far behind, although Hirsus hung back reluctantly. I believe that it was only the prospect of being left alone in the dark with that desiccated corpse that gave him the courage to come at all.

We did not have far to go. The centurion and Junio were standing in the grove and at their feet lay something still and white. Two soldiers turned it over as we came, and in the flickering torchlight we could see clearly what it was.

It was Trinunculus, and he was dead.