The River God

8

Near the gate we stopped at a little tavern. The sun was well up, and I needed a pause to think. Also, it was time for a drink and something to eat. Who knew when I’d get a chance again? We found a table against a wall of white stucco beneath an arbor that was all but bare so early in the year. Light fell through the arbor in lozenge-shaped patches, making the table, the fioor, and ourselves look like pictures in mosaic. I ordered the wine to be very lightly watered, and we used it to wash down oil-dipped bread and olives for a while.

Hermes spoke first. “It was the big slave, wasn’t it?”

“Had to be,” I concurred. “That’s why he was dressed, and it’s why he was trapped there standing. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It was pretty far-fetched to think he dropped there, landed on his feet, and got pinned there that way. He drilled one hole too many, and the building came down too fast.”

“Why did he do it?” Hermes wondered. “Just to kill the master and mistress? I can understand why he’d want to. You saw how they treated their slaves. But why kill more than two hundred people just to get rid of them?”

“I suspect he did kill them, personally,” I said. “He could have broken their necks easily, then gone down to the basement to bore those last few holes, figuring to disguise the murder as an accident. But he didn’t step lively enough.”

Hermes shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. Revenge was a good enough motivation for the slave, but it doesn’t explain how everyone else has been acting since the disaster. He may have had a personal justification for ridding the world of those two, but someone must have put him up to the final deed.”

In a bit of spilled wine my fingertip traced a circle, then drew a slash across it. It took me a moment to realize what I had unconsciously drawn: the Greek letter “theta.” In the shorthand of the Games, it stands for Thanatos: killed. After the munera, this symbol is scratched on the walls, following the names of the gladiators who have been slain.

“Two names keep cropping up,” I said. “Marcus Valerius Messala Niger and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.”

“Those are two important names,” Hermes pointed out.

“Yes, and Valerius Messala is in the process of weaseling himself into the political affairs of my family. The family has been hinting heavily that I should drop this investigation.”

“Maybe you should.”

“And let someone get away with murdering a whole insula full of people, free and slave?”

Hermes spread his hands. “I’m just a slave; I do as I’m told. But if your family is against your prosecuting the people responsible for this, you are going to have some serious trouble accomplishing anything.”

I mused, almost to myself, “They have been doing a number of things I am having trouble countenancing. Hermes, do you know why my family is so important?”

He was taken aback. “Well, yours is one of the most ancient of the noble names-”

“Certainly. But the Caesars are even more ancient, and they’ve amounted to nothing for centuries. Caius Julius is the first to win real distinction since Rome had kings. No, we Metelli have supplied Rome with praetors and consuls and censors since before written records, but we’ve dominated Roman politics for the last thirty years for one reason: We backed Sulla against Marius. When Sulla was dictator, the men who are now elders of the family, and some who are now dead, were his most forceful supporters: Celer, Pius, Creticus, old Numidicus, and my father.”

Hermes shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t take much interest in politics or history. It’s not a slave’s business.”

“What a liar you are. And a poor liar, at that. Those big fiap ears of yours take in anything that’s to your advantage. And as my personal slave, you have to know more about politics than most senators. Well, go ahead, pretend to be stupid. You may live longer that way.”

To some it may seem strange that I would speak so openly to a slave. But the fact is that Rome has never been a place where the status of slave was a life sentence. A capable slave, or a lucky one, like Justus, could expect to be manumitted and then rise in the world. After a generation or two, all taint of servitude was forgotten. In the Senate, I sat beside many men whose grandfathers had been slaves. On occasion, even that generational period was waived. Many well-born men who were sonless adopted an especially esteemed freedman to carry on the family name with full privileges, the same as if he had been born into it.

And I fully expected to manumit Hermes, as soon as he showed the faintest sign of a sense of responsibility. As my freedman, he would still be bound to me by bonds of patronage, but he would be a free man, able to vote in the Assemblies, own property, and marry at will. I had been at some pains to educate him for this eventual role. I have mentioned his criminal proclivities, but I had a few of those myself. As Rome was in those days, it was no bad thing for a man to have a bit of the criminal and the thug in his character. It made survival a greater likelihood. Rome has changed, of course. Since the First Citizen’s reforms, the desirable qualities are those of the toady, the lickspittle, and the informer.

“It is clear that I am going to have to tread carefully. I may have to go armed again. From now on we can expect to be attacked. In ordinary times, even the gangs have avoided violence against a serving magistrate; but these are not ordinary times, and it isn’t as if I were a praetor or consul. A plebeian aedile doesn’t rate that high.” In the past I had usually carried concealed weapons while in the City, skirting the law for the sake of my own hide. I had fondly hoped that my office conferred some sort of immunity, but that hope was fading fast.

Hermes was fidgeting impatiently.

“You have something to say?” I asked.

“Why must you always think as if you must act alone? You have friends, allies, even political opponents who would be willing to help.”

I considered this. “In the past, I’ve availed myself of Milo’s aid, but that would look very bad now. He’s responsible for a good deal of the bloodshed in the streets, and he wants to be consul next year. There is too much wrangling among the consular and proconsular persons just now to expect help from that quarter, and it looks as if Messala will be interrex soon. It’s like trying to separate fighting elephants. I’d be trampled. Besides, he was among the first to warn me against this investigation. Infiuential clients of his are worried about it.”

“What about Cicero? He loves to prosecute, and he’s always liked you.”

“Liking is a fieeting thing,” I pointed out. “I revere and admire Cicero, but he’s growing obsessive in his opposition to Caesar. He knows that Caesar, for whatever insane reason, values me. And I’m married to Caesar’s niece. Right now those things outweigh any lingering affection he feels for me. If I were to approach Cicero on this, he would suspect that Caesar was playing some subtle game, using me as a cat’spaw.”

“Then what about Cato?” Hermes asked, exasperated.

“Cato?” I barked. “I detest Cato!”

“So what? You need help, not love! He was a great tribune of the plebs. The whole population sings his praises as upright and incorruptible, the enemy of all corruption and impiety, and, best of all, he is absolutely fearless! He’s taken on the whole Senate more than once. He took Cicero’s part when people called for his exile if not execution. He’s turned down bribes that would have tempted a pharaoh, and he doesn’t even know how much you loathe him because he’s too thick-skinned to notice your insults!”

So much for Hermes’s ignorance of political affairs. I didn’t like even to contemplate going to Cato for help; then again, I didn’t like being in Caesar’s camp, either, but there I was. Everything Hermes said about the man was true. A great many Roman politicians made a public show of antique virtue and incorruptibility, contempt for greed and foreign luxury. They were all lying hypocrites, except for Cato. He meant every word, and he practiced as he preached. It didn’t make me like him any better. Reasonable laxity of character and a pleasing personality have always been more to my liking.

“Let me consider this,” I said. “We have the Libitinarii to question first. Then perhaps I can nerve myself up to talking with the glorious Marcus Porcius Cato.”

The Libitinarii of Rome had their district surrounding the Temple of Venus Libitina. We identify Venus with the Greek Aphrodite, but the pretty, mischievous Greek deity has no aspect as a death goddess. Our Libitina is different. We Romans see no contradiction in having one goddess to preside over both copulation and death, since you pretty much have to have the one before you can have the other.

Neither the Libitinarii nor their establishments are especially gloomy, since we are very fond of funerals. We figure that you are only going to get one funeral, and it is the last thing people will remember about you, so it might as well be gaudy. The Libitinarii, with their bizarre Etruscan trappings, are frightening figures; but that is mainly because they deal with corpses that are still in their dangerous, recently dead state. Romans have little fear of death or the dead, but we are horrified of the ritual contamination of death. Once the Libitinarii have carried out the lustrum that purifies the corpse, we are much easier about the whole business.

The establishments of the Libitinarii in this quarter were built, not like shops nor like factories, but rather like houses, with alterations suitable to their purpose. A little asking brought me to the business of Sextus Volturnus. Libitinarii favor Etruscan names, even if they are not of that ancestry. We have always associated the Etruscans with the underworld deities, since they are so fond of them.

This house looked little different from my own, except that the gate that opened onto the street featured a double door and was far taller. This was so that pallbearers carrying a corpse on a litter could pass through easily. It was almost twice a man’s height, since some people still preferred to be carried to the pyre sitting upright in a chair. The atrium was very large for the convenience of those who would lie in state at the funeral house instead of in their own homes. This allowed for more visitors than most houses could comfortably accommodate. All was painted in bright colors, with many fioral designs and frescoes of the open countryside, nothing to associate with death or the underworld.

The man who came forward as I entered the spacious atrium of the place wore the only symbol in sight of his profession: a black toga. This was not merely the dingy, brown toga most of us wore when in mourning, but a genuine, midnight black toga. Somehow, in the cheery surroundings, it looked all the more ominous. His expression, when he saw me, was stricken.

“A great Roman has died!” he intoned. “Alas!”

“Eh?” I said. “See here, I am the Aedile Metellus-”

He clasped his hands together, all but squeezing the blood from them. “The gods forbid it! Your father, the great censor, has left us! All Rome will weep! Sir, if you will leave all the arrangements to me, I shall be honored to-”

“Nothing like that!” I said. “Nobody has died. Nobody in my family, anyway. I need to inquire into the disposition of a couple of corpses I sent here yesterday morning.”

“Oh.” He lowered his hands to his sides, severe disappointment written upon his face. “That would be Lucius Folius and his wife.”

“It would.” I was beginning to wonder whether the woman had ever had a name. “I sent a physician here to examine them for signs of foul play, and he informed me that they had been taken away.”

“They were. Barring any instructions to the contrary, it is customary to surrender the bodies of the dead to whatever heirs or others who wish to remove them for cremation and interment. Since these rites were to be performed in their ancestral town of Bovillae, there was no need to keep them here.”

“And this heir was one Caius Folius?”

“So he said.”

“Did he provide any proof of identity?” I asked him.

The man was totally mystified. “Is there some sort of law requiring this? I certainly never heard of such a thing. Proof of identity? What would that be? And who would claim a body without cause? These weren’t like the mummies of pharaohs, decked out in gold and jewels. They were just a pair of corpses getting no more fragrant with the passage of time.” He was growing quite indignant.

“I get your point,” I said, holding out a palm for peace. “Did this Caius Folius claim that he was a son of the late couple?”

“Not likely. He looked older than either of them, and I took him for a brother or cousin or some such relative.”

“What did he look like?”

“Balding, plump, wore a lot of rings. He looked rather nondescript altogether”-he thought for a moment-”except for his nose.”

“What was singular about his nose?”

“He had a large, wine-colored wart on it. If I’d been getting him ready for the pyre, I’d have dusted it with powder to make it less glaring.”

“Thank you, Sextus Volturnus,” I said, grasping both his clammy hands in mine. “You’ve been a great help!”

“If you say so. Please keep me in mind should any of your illustrious relatives depart.”

We left the funeral home and turned our steps toward the Forum. So Juventius, the steward of Aemilius Scaurus, had claimed the bodies of the late Folii; and they were, in all likelihood, on their way to Bovillae with Aemilius himself. Why? That, along with a great many other questions, remained to be answered.

Cato wasn’t hard to find. He never was.

Marcus Porcius Cato was the enemy of all things modern or foreign. These things included sleeping late, eating well, bathing in hot water, and enjoying anything beautiful. He studied philosophy and even wrote philosophical tracts, but he was naturally attracted to the Stoics since they were the most disagreeable of all the Greeks. He believed that all virtue resided in the practices of our ancestors, and that the only path to greatness lay in narrow adherence to those practices. He revered above all others his ancestor Cato the Censor, the most repulsive man among all Rome’s many disgusting personages, most of whom were content to be cruel and vicious on their own behalf. Cato the Censor wanted everyone to be as nasty as he was.

There was a trial that morning in the Basilica Opimia, and I was sure that Cato would attend because it was a capital case and he had been complaining that Roman juries hadn’t been demanding harsh enough sentences lately. He would want to be there to press for the most savage punishments decreed by his revered ancestors.

Sure enough, there he was on a bench, surrounded by his cronies, many of whom affected his “antique simplicity.” Despite the coolness of the weather, he eschewed a tunic, wearing only a primitive, square-cut toga that draped him awkwardly, leaving half his torso bare. Instead of having his hair cut and styled by a barber, he shaved his head every month or so, so that he sported an uneven stubble over his whole scalp.

When he saw me, he got to his bare feet. He thought sandals to be an effeminate luxury, unworthy of our barefoot ancestors, and wore footgear only when campaigning with the army. He was not a large or imposing man and was not particularly powerful, but he refused to recognize any weakness in himself and so was capable of extraordinary feats of strength and endurance through sheer stubbornness.

“Hail, Aedile!” he cried, like a soldier saluting his general as Imperator.

“And a fine morning to you, Marcus Porcius Cato,” I said. “Did you get the felon cut in two with a timber saw or torn to bits by Mollosian hounds or whatever the punishment was?”

“It was a woman who poisoned her husband, and the jury voted for exile just because the man had been beating her regularly.” I did not know whether his grimace of distaste was for the mild punishment or my own levity, another thing of which he disapproved. He had no sense of humor whatsoever.

“Well, better luck next time. Marcus Porcius, I may soon need your help on a matter pertaining to my activities as aedile.”

His perpetual frown deepened. “You have seldom sought my help in the past,” he said. “Never, now that I think of it. Why now?”

“Because my usual sources of support have turned their backs on me, and for once I think you will approve of what I am doing.”

“That would indeed be a prodigy,” he said, with his usual, heavy sarcasm. “I am listening.”

So I told him of my investigation and where it had led me. His expression did not change throughout the recital, but I knew that he was absorbing every word and would be able to repeat them verbatim ten years hence. He had a rare fixity of concentration. When I was finished, he gave a curt nod.

“This is most worthy,” he said. “You have a genuine devotion to duty, Decius Caecilius, despite your deplorable frivolity. I especially disapprove of your emphasis on theatrical performances in your upcoming Games. Such alien entertainments render the people weak and passive. You need more combats and animal hunts and executions. Those are the things that strengthen and harden the citizens. And awnings are a totally unnecessary luxury. Let them endure a few hours of sunlight; it will do them good. And another thing-” and so on and on. You had to put up with this sort of thing from Cato if you wanted his aid. Wait, I thought, until he hears about my seat cushions. Finally, he got back to the business at hand.

“I think it has been far too long since anyone has taken action against the whole pack of greedy, money-grubbing builders. I don’t recall a serious campaign against them since Sulla. He fined them, drove them from the City, and executed a few as an example. That is what we need now.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said, “but you realize that it means crossing some of the most important men in the Senate as well as the richest of the equites?“

“What of that?” he snarled. “Anyone, however highborn or powerful, who puts riches above the public weal should be cast from the Tarpeian Rock, then dragged on a hook through the streets and down the Tiber steps and cast into the river, preferably still breathing through the whole ordeal. That’s how we used to deal with traitors! And traitors they are, Decius! It is bad enough that wealthy freedmen have gained so much power, but now they have corrupted their betters as well. Since our earliest days, filthy commerce has been forbidden to the nobility. Using money to make money is an abomination! Some avaricious sophist came up with the dodge that stone, clay, and timber come from the land and therefore owners of estates may traffic in them legitimately as products of virtuous agriculture.”

This was a typical rant from Cato. As usual, he blamed all corruption on foreigners and the lower classes. His own class had been pure, pristine, and above it all before they were tempted by those whom the gods adored less.

My own interpretation of our social history differs somewhat from Cato’s. Dispensing with pleasing myths like the story of the Trojan prince Aeneas, according to myth the son of Venus, and his son, Julus, from whom Caesar traces his ancestry, it goes somewhat as follows:

About seven hundred years ago, a pack of bandits arrived in central Italy, led by two brothers named Romulus and Remus. They despoiled the nearby peoples of land and women and set up their own little bandit state. At some point, Romulus established a fine old Roman tradition by murdering his brother. Had it been the other way around, I suppose we might now be living in a city named Reme.

After a period of rule by kings, some of them Etruscan, our ancestors established the Republic. The pack of families who controlled everything called themselves patricians, and they owned all the land that was worth anything. Since they were nothing but wealthy farmers, they decreed that only wealthy farmers had any claim to honor and respectability. Money from any source save farming was tainted, since it was a kind of money they never got.

The lesser people were the plebeians, who got here a little too late to claim the better land, all that having gone to the first pack of bandits and passed on to their descendants. The plebeians had the virtue of numbers, and the patricians needed them if there was to be an army; and the rest of Roman history has been a struggle between the classes for power. These plebeians wanted to own land and be respectable, too; and some of them, my own family among them, managed the feat. It is a rule that good land is already claimed, so the only way to get some of it was to take it away from somebody else, and that was how we got started on the path to empire.

There was one exception to this wealth-from-landequals-honor rule: Loot taken in war was also honorable. This consisted of anything the people you killed left lying about, plus the people themselves, if they were still breathing and capable of work. If you captured the wealthier ones, you could sell them back to their families. Crudely put, besides farming, the only honorable ways to make money were theft, slaving, and ransom.

Do not misunderstand me. Barbarians are usually far worse than we are and are mostly disgusting when they aren’t being ridiculous. People who get enslaved generally bring it on themselves by losing wars or being stupid; and if they have any decent qualities at all, they can work themselves out of that state.

All my life I have enjoyed being an aristocrat, loaded with privileges and able to lord it over most of the population. It is just that, unlike Cato, I don’t see any particular virtue inherent to the status of nobilitas. If my long life has taught me anything, it is that the only really vital quality to have is luck. Some have it and some do not, and it has nothing to do with character or inherited virtue. We can sacrifice and perform all the prescribed rituals to placate or buy off whatever god or goddess is in charge of whatever aspect of life; but in the end, the only one that counts is Fortuna, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to infiuence her.

The maddening thing was that I had to agree with Cato, at least when it came to the problem and what should be done about it. I have often noticed that the most frustrating thing in life is, not when people disagree with you, but rather when they agree for the wrong reason. It looked as if Cato and I were to be allies on this thing, yet I detested the man, his bullheaded obstinacy, his vile, self-righteous brutality, his total lack of any sense of proportion, his complacent pride in his ancestry, and any number of other qualities and actions I found repugnant.

“First off,” Cato said, “we must have names. With names we can bring charges before the court of the urban praetor. So far we have only Aemilius Scaurus and this contemptible contractor, Caninus. The former has already been in court a good deal of late, and the latter is little more than a glorified garbage hauler. We need more names, many names, and prominent ones. We’ll attract little attention just prosecuting these two.”

“I’m working on that,” I told him, “but there may be problems.”

“Eh? What sort of problems?”

“Well, if my past experience in this sort of investigation, which you know to be extensive, is anything to go by, people will soon be trying to kill me.”

He scowled. “So what? You’re a grown man. You should be able to take care of yourself. I myself have never shirked a fight, whether in foreign lands or right here in the Forum. If someone attacks you, kill him first. That’s what I always do.”

“Sage advice as always. Still, they may be more numerous than usual this time. They may succeed.”

“Then I shall just have to go on without you. Rest assured, I shall pursue this matter until the last malefactor is brought to justice. There are still some fine old punishments for corruption on the books. I shall find them.”

“I am sure you shall, Marcus Porcius, and knowing it is a great comfort to me.”

“What need has any true Roman of comfort?” He really talked that way.

I walked away from him greatly relieved that I wouldn’t have to talk to him again for a while. Disagreeable as the conference had been, I knew that he would work indefatigably on the case, and that he would put his clients to the same task, and that I might anticipate some progress soon. Awful as he was, Cato was a good man to have on your side.

In favor of Marcus Porcius Cato, I can say only this: He died splendidly, years later, in Utica.

Hermes and I made our belated way to the Temple of Ceres while I pondered my next move. When I saw the heap of old wood in the courtyard, a thought occurred to me.

“Hermes, go find the messengers assigned to the office. Send them out to locate Marcus Caninus and summon him here at once.”

Hermes trotted off, and I consulted with my clients and petitioners for a while. While we talked, I made them all accompany me on a short walk down to the river. The water was ankle deep on the wharves, and a quick examination revealed that it was almost to the tops of the sewer outlets. Soon all would be backing up; and as jammed as the side drains were, the water could stand in the City for weeks after the river receded.

I dispatched clients to check on the lower-lying areas of the City and report on their preparations and ability to weather the coming fiood.

In the last fioods, I recalled, people had crowded into temples, basilicas, and porticoes, anywhere that they could find a roof. Most, however, had simply huddled miserably on the higher parts of the Campus Martius and on hillsides outside the walls of the City. Those fioods had been accompanied by heavy rains, so sickness had been rampant and many people had died.

It occurred to me that we ought to have some sort of system to provide temporary relief in times of natural catastrophe. We had our old system of grain doles, but that was for times of siege, which had been rare in recent centuries. A warehouse or two holding tents or portable booths would make a great deal of difference. But who would pay for this and see to its maintenance? Oh, well, another problem to ponder.

In the afternoon, Marcus Caninus arrived, and he was not alone. The five men with him were tough-looking specimens of his own sort, and all of them were dressed in green tunics. This was the uniform of the followers of Plautius Hypsaeus, mob leader and candidate for next year’s praetorship. Of course, I thought when I saw them, they might all work for the Green Racing Faction, or it might just be coincidence that they all wore green tunics that day. As I have said, I have little faith in the power of coincidence.

“You’ve summoned me, Aedile, so here I am,” Caninus said, his previous toadying servility replaced by insolence. “Now what do you want?” Clearly, my status had fallen in the two days since our last interview.

“You must remove all this timber,” I said, waving a hand over the heap of rotten wood.

“I delivered it only yesterday morning,” he said. “Where do you want it now?”

“First, I want to know why you switched the wood you took from the fallen insula, which was sound, although a bit green and then deliberately damaged, for this rotten stuff.”

“Switched?” he said. “This is the wood I took from that basement, and anyone who says differently is a liar.”

“Mind your tongue,” I advised him. “You are speaking to a serving magistrate.”

“Times aren’t what they once were, Aedile. People don’t look to you senators for leadership like they used to. An aedile doesn’t have imperium anyway. You’ve got no lictors around you, and you don’t have the special protections that a tribune of the plebs enjoys.”

It sounded to me suspiciously as if someone had coached him on the niceties of the law concerning serving officials. Most citizens were woefully ignorant of these matters and assumed that anyone in office shared in the powers and immunities of the highest. The fact was, many of us were no more than State functionaries without special protection and privileges. Those trappings of the imperium-holding offices-the lictors and curule chairs and the purple borders on the togas-conferred far more than mere dignity. They set the officeholder aside as someone with extraordinary powers and to trifie with whom could cost your head. As a mere plebeian aedile, I had none of those things.

Behind Caninus, his green-clad thugs smirked. Such men always relish a leader’s defiance of authority. I knew men like Caninus well from long, bitter experience. They are like the oversized curs that lead mongrel packs, and if you display the slightest weakness before them you are done for. I stepped up to him so that our faces were only inches apart and assumed the cold, imperious face for which Roman officials are famed all over the world. I was very good at this and practiced it often, in private.

“Publicanus,“ I said, in my most withering tone, “it is only out of respect for the laws of the Republic that I tolerate your insolence. Display any more of it, and I will haul you before the urban praetor’s court on a charge of maiestas. You are aware of that charge?” I had chosen my form of address deliberately. To most people, publicanus was a term of contempt and loathing, since the only publicani they were likely to encounter were the tax collectors, whom nobody loved.

His eyes fiickered for a moment, his confidence beginning to slip before my arrogance. “I’ve heard the word. What of it?”

“It means gross insult to the majesty of the Roman people and their sacred State. The punishment is the same as that for treason.”

“That is absurd! Just because I-”

“As an official of that State,” I went on, not giving him a chance to collect his slow wits, “I embody the collective dignity of the Roman People! Lay so much as a hand on the lowliest quaestor, and you become an enemy of the State.”

“Who is laying hands on anyone?” he blustered. “I spoke up for myself, that is all!”

I sneered as haughtily as Cato. “Insult of word or attitude is the same as personal violence. You are not in the midst of a mob now, Caninus, hurling anonymous abuse at your betters on the speaker’s platform. You stand here alone, before witnesses. These are the sacred precincts of the Temple of Ceres, home of the plebeian aediles since the founding of the Republic. Do not compound your offense with sacrilege!”

This was purest bluster on my part. He could bend over, pull up his tunic, and expose his buttocks to the whole College of Aediles in perfect safety, to the best of my knowledge; and you could probably include the High Priestess of Ceres. But physical size and the toughness of a street brawler are no match for the gravitas of a highborn Roman official, raised from birth to sit in judgment and command legions. Facing down such a figure, backed by the power of the State, was a far cry from driving gangs of slaves.

“Now,” I said, “be so good as to tell me why you substituted this timber for the wood you hauled from the ruins of the insula. And think carefully before you call me a liar.”

He was cowed, but I couldn’t be sure how long that would last. The men behind him looked sorely disappointed. His pique at losing face before his peers could easily overcome his ingrained subordination to authority.

He paused and thought, clearly an unaccustomed activity. “There is the wood. That is what I took from the insula. You have no evidence that says otherwise.”

“So you are going to trade legal quibbles with me? Do you think you are qualified to do this? I’ve conducted many prosecutions, Caninus.”

“And I’ve witnessed many trials, Aedile. I know that a mere accusation means little without evidence to back it up.”

He had me there. I had no reliable witnesses to attest to what we’d found in the basement, just Hermes, and as a slave he could only testify under torture. Even if this is done in form alone, as by pouring water up the wretch’s nose, it is a degrading business and nobody believes the slave anyway. If I told him what I had learned from Justus, the man would be dead by morning. I decided to hold the freedman in reserve.

“Marcus Caninus, it is clear to me that there is a criminal conspiracy here, a conspiracy to conceal evidence of fraudulent practices from investigation. If you do not reveal to me what you know about this matter, I will not hesitate to proceed against you and seek the most severe punishment.”

He shifted uneasily, glancing in the direction of the men in green. He was beginning to regret that he had brought them along. “You’ll be dealing with men far more important than I am, Aedile.”

“Exactly. It is the custom of such men, when engaged in criminal conspiracy, to sacrifice the lowest-ranking man involved to save their own hides. That man would be you, Marcus Caninus.”

His expression hardened. “Then I’m screwed by greater men. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You needn’t suffer alone,” I told him. “In fact, there is no need for you to face prosecution at all. I am not interested in bringing a mere publicanus to trial. Name to me the men who are engaged in this illegal traffic, which has cost the lives of a great many citizens, and be prepared to swear to this in court, and you will suffer no more than the forfeit of your public contract and a nominal fine.”

“I am not an informer,” he said, drawing himself up to his full, formidable height.

“Of course not,” I said. “You are a loyal supporter of the Senate and People. Think about it. You know how to find me. Now, I give you leave to go.”

Nonchalantly I turned and walked away, the muscles of my back tensed against a half-anticipated dagger thrust. Slowly I turned and saw him walking away with his hounds at heel. “Oh, Marcus Caninus?”

He turned, puzzled. “Aedile?”

“Don’t forget to come back and haul away all this wood. The High Priestess is most insistent.”