I picked my way over fallen masonry. In a little hollow about twenty feet along, I saw someone in a priest’s robe lying on his back. He was resting on a broken limb from a colossal statue, his face in shadow. Under the robe around his waist was a bulge and little movements.
I could hear the beating of my heart as I approached. ‘Maximin?’ I called uncertainly. ‘Is that you, Maximin?’
I pulled the robe back. It wasn’t Maximin. It was a priest being sucked off by a whore. She looked up at me, the lines of her face showing through the glazed chalk paint that stood out in the light from my torch. She opened her mouth in a black, ragged smile. Her client’s great, heavy cock collapsed like a stricken tree.
‘I can explain everything, my son,’ the priest began in a round voice.
I fought back the throbbing in my head and kicked him hard in the belly, and then again. I stepped back to avoid the jet of winey vomit that came from his mouth. He doubled up like a disturbed hedgehog. The whore reached out for the purse tied to his waist. I kicked her in the face. She flew back, her head cracking against more of the smashed statue. I pulled out my sword and raised it ‘Sir,’ Martin was beside me. ‘Sir, we must move on. Morning will be with us soon.’
We searched and searched. ‘Maximin!’ I cried like a maniac as we ran through the endless, silent streets beyond the Suburra. ‘Maximin, Maximin – where are you?’
I lost all track of where we could be in that gigantic city. One dark street was very like all others. Some were more ruined, some more blocked with filth and other debris. Some contained a few shifty creatures who scurried to get out of my way. Some were entirely bare of human life.
A few times, the cloud cover broke, and a momentary gleam of moonlight supplemented our now dying torches.
Eventually, we reached the Forum. The other searchers were there already. They stood in a tight, silent knot beside the Column of Phocas.
The Forum itself was still in darkness. But the first light of the morning sun was lighting the gold of the statue from its head down. Soon it would put all the gloom to flight.
I stopped perhaps five yards from the column. The others stood looking down. Martin hurried forward. As if in one of those dreams where your legs have turned heavy, I forced myself along behind him. At the foot of the column, a little heap lay.
There were strange colours flashing in my head, and I fought to control spasms of shaking as I made myself walk the last few yards.
It was Maximin. The head was covered with a piece of cloth. But it was Maximin. I’d known that already.
The light was strengthening from moment to moment, and I could see all more and more clearly. It was Maximin.
No, it wasn’t Maximin – it was his body. His body was carefully laid out, the arms folded across his chest. His head was a bloody mass. Blood oozed through the robe. The rats had been at him and had left droppings all around.
The others stood back.
‘Maximin,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, Maximin.’
I fell to my knees beside him. I raised his cold, little body in a tight embrace. I kissed his grey face. I buried my face in the bloody robe. I wept so that I could hardly breathe for the lump in my throat. Bright flashes of memory ripped through my mind. I saw him in Canterbury when I was first shown into the office he’d shared in a little hut. ‘I really want to learn English well,’ I heard him say, his face oddly soft and sallow in comparison to the northern faces I’d known before. ‘Do you think it can be done before Christmas?’
I was distantly aware of the arms that parted us as we were both lifted for carrying back to the house on the Caelian Hill.
20
The doctor spoke in a prissy, detached voice, as if giving a lecture. ‘There is a contusion here, and another here.’ He pointed at places on the back of the head. ‘However -’ he pulled back the sheet, again revealing the pale, washed flesh – ‘I believe death was immediately caused by this wound here.’
He pointed to a little puncture just under the ribcage. ‘This looks like the stab from a military sword. It was made with a force and precision that indicated some professional skill.’ He lifted the right hand. ‘Three fingers missing here. They weren’t found? No – the rats didn’t carry them away. Not, at least, from where he was found.’
He answered questions from others. I stood silent in the storeroom beside the kitchens where the body had been laid out.
‘But even without the other marks, this would indicate a desperate struggle. The victim was struck from behind. He fell -’ pointing to the scuffed knees – ‘but he didn’t go down. He was up and round. You say he carried a staff? This wasn’t found either? I imagine he defended himself. That would explain the lost fingers and the gashes on both arms.
‘The stab was upwards, indicating he was on his feet to the last. Bearing in mind the struggle, I’d say there were at least two attackers.’
I gripped the back of a chair to hold myself up. Marcella had pumped me with wine and something else that tasted bitter. My head was aching, but otherwise clear. But the sudden view of Maximin’s naked body was bringing back the shakes.
‘You say he was found with his purse still about him,’ the doctor continued. ‘Even had it been taken, I wouldn’t say this was a common robbery. That generally involves a knife in the back or a garrotte. The killers here were men with regular arms.’
He stopped and thought. ‘I’m guessing here, but I have the feeling that the blows to the head were not intended to cause death. More likely, the intention was to disable the victim so he could be taken elsewhere… I can’t explain the stab wound. An accident, perhaps, or a sudden change of plan. As it is, I haven’t examined where he was found. But I’m told there was little blood on the ground, and he was laid out. These are facts consistent with a killing elsewhere. On why the body was moved to where it was found, and its arrangement, I cannot possibly comment.’
There was a question from the diplomat. He spoke clearly and in good Latin. But I had to shake my head in the unaccountably useless effort to understand what he was saying. It was a strange trick my mind had been playing with me on and off all morning.
‘When did he die?’ I finally made myself hear the diplomat say.
‘From the condition of the body now, and from the intense activity that preceded death,’ the doctor answered, ‘I’d say around the early part of yesterday evening. The Forum isn’t busy at night, but I can’t imagine that the body could have lain undiscovered long there. It would have been left there shortly before you found it. But that is a matter for others to decide. I am not an investigator.’
He replaced the sheet, turning to face us. ‘I shall need to make a further and more detailed examination. But I will do this in private. You can have my written report later today. In the meantime -’ he looked at me – ‘I think the young man would benefit from sleep. I can prescribe…’ He reached into his bag.
I shook my head. I needed to stay awake.
I remember almost nothing of the journey back. I recall waiting at the front gate, supported on both sides, watching the sun turn the tiles of the neighbouring houses a deep red. I recall being helped by Martin and Gretel into a hot bath. I recall being dressed. I recall being held in Marcella’s arms during a fit of sobs, as she comforted me like a child with little lullabies. I remember pressing the gold I’d promised into grateful hands. Above all, I remember standing beside Maximin’s body before it had been washed and prepared for the doctor. Marcella’s potion was just taking effect, putting me into a mood of calm detachment. I was alone. I took up one of the cold, stiffening hands and held it to my breast. The skin was already grown flabby, and it moved oddly over the bones beneath.
‘By all that you held holy,’ I said in Latin, ‘I will avenge you.’
