I switched into English, as what I had to say was for no one else. ‘I swear by whatever God or gods may reign in Heaven – I swear by my honour and the love that I bear you – that I will avenge you. I will not rest. I will care nothing for my own safety or comfort. I will regard no laws, human or divine. I will find who did this to you – and I will destroy him. Wherever you have gone, my friend, my father, my everything, you will not go unaccompanied.’
Now the doctor had arrived and was setting out his instruments in that little room, and we were being moved out into the hall.
‘We must take this to the prefect, sir,’ the old watchman told me. He was right. There wasn’t much in Rome of order. But there was a law, and its formalities had to be observed.
‘He will eat something first,’ said Marcella in a voice that cut off all chance of objection. ‘He can’t go down to the Basilica in this heat with nothing but wine in his poor belly.’
As if from nowhere, slaves appeared with bread and olives. I ate without enthusiasm or much awareness.
Out in the street, among the householders and slaves about their normal business, I felt a little more human. Some gave me sorrowful looks. One of the neighbours I’d seen the night before came over and embraced me, expressing his regrets in a thick accent I couldn’t place.
I went down to the Basilica with Martin and the old watchman for support.
‘Shocking – perfectly shocking,’ said the prefect from behind his desk.
I sat before him, alone in the office. He’d already had the news, and his sympathy extended to pouring me a cup of wine with his own hands.
‘A priest, and so brutally slain,’ he continued. ‘I shall hardly be able to bear reading my copy of the medical report. Have another cup, my dear friend. The wine is from Cyprus. I have it brought in specially. You’ll agree it’s so much finer on the palate than the local muck. Now -’ he leaned across the desk – ‘what brings you to see me?’
My mouth fell open. ‘I… I want to ask what investigation you will begin. Where I come from, we sort these things out ourselves. I will find the killers myself. But I shall need assistance. You are the civil power in Rome. You know this city. You have men who can help with the search. I’ve come to ask how we can work together in the investigation.’
The prefect smiled indulgently. ‘Oh dear me, no. I can’t possibly do anything about this. I’m far too busy to sanction any investigation.’
He lifted a pile of reports. ‘Can you begin to imagine how many murders there are in Rome? There were forty last month alone. There were two last night, including your friend. Not one has been or can be cleared up.
‘No – wait – one was cleared up, I think.’ He dug through the pile. ‘Ah, yes. A woman was murdered in her bed. That was another shocking crime. Her breasts were sliced off and her privy parts sewn shut. We solved it when the husband confessed to the local baker, then hanged himself. It was to do with disputed paternity of a child. Or something.’
He took the sheet in question and added it to a clear space on his desk. He looked at it with a satisfied smile, and poured more wine.
‘It’s all to do with resources, you see.’ He took in a mouthful of wine and swilled it round before swallowing. ‘You can’t make bricks without straw.’
‘But he was a man of God,’ I said, astonished. ‘You can’t just ignore his being murdered in the street.’
‘But was he murdered in the street?’ The prefect leaned forward, pressing his fingers together. He switched into Greek: ‘What did you find outside Populonium?’
A few years on, and I’d have given him back a look of stony incomprehension. As it was, I said nothing, but perceptibly stiffened.
‘You have many accomplishments for a barbarian,’ he said, pleased with his stratagem – not that I could see its purpose. He switched back into Latin. ‘What did you find outside Populonium?’ he asked again. ‘I had positive orders from -’ he waved a hand vaguely in the air – ‘from on high to send a mounted unit all the way over to Populonium. You were saved carrying a reasonable amount of gold and what I admit was a most holy relic. But none of this can explain the urgency of my instructions. Tell me – what did you find there?’
‘The relic and some other things,’ I said in confusion.
‘ What “other things”?’
Yes, what ‘other things’? I went cold.
‘There were some letters,’ I said with dawning horror. ‘There were three sealed letters.’
‘Letters?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Letters from whom? To whom? What was in them?’
‘I don’t know. Maximin had them.’
‘Did he read them?’
‘I don’t know.’
The prefect shrugged and took up his cup again.
I did know. Maximin had forgotten about the things just as I had. Letters hadn’t been on our list of things to grab from those English mercenaries; and since we’d got everything that was on the list, we’d paid no attention to anything else. But it wasn’t the gold or the relic that had primarily got that chase under way. What was it they’d said as they caught up? ‘Don’t let the fat one get away.’ They’d have killed me, sure enough. But Maximin had the letters, and they were after him.
Maximin had been reminded of the letters in the dispensator’s office. That was why he wanted me out of the way that evening. He’d wanted time to read and think. What had he found? Whatever it was, it must have been big: he’d still been disturbed next morning. That explained his anger with me.
Why hadn’t I picked up on this? Why had I spent the morning prancing about in fine clothes? If I hadn’t been so full of myself, and I knew I could have got information out of him had I tried, Maximin might still…
I checked the thought and focused back on the prefect. He was looking very pleased with himself. I declined another cup.
He sighed. ‘I truly would like to help you. But unless you can show me those letters or tell me what was in them, I have nowhere to begin with an investigation.
‘Of course,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘if you wanted to offer a reward for information, I’d be glad to hold the money for you
…’
As I left his office, I nearly bumped into a slave carrying another jug of wine. The old watchman shrugged when I said how little I’d got. I couldn’t say what I had expected. I’d read that the Romans had authorities to investigate and try crimes. Plainly, my sources were old. It would all be down to me – which I supposed was for the best.
21
Back in the house, all was chaos again. Marcella was running about screaming. A cane in her hand, she was lashing out at any slaves within reach. There was a gathering of the other guests out in the garden.
I went into the courtyard. The diplomat was saying something to one of his slaves that I couldn’t understand, but, from its tone, sounded humorous.
‘What’s happening now?’ I asked.
‘The dispensator’s men came just after you left,’ he explained in his slow but correct Latin. ‘They searched the reverend father’s rooms and took all his papers. They were in yours too.’
He smiled, showing the wide gap between his front teeth, and said something more about that cargo of incense from Athens. I’d normally have paid attention – the man was a mine of interesting information about all matters commercial. Now, I rushed upstairs.
They had been in my rooms. Everything written was gone, including the books I’d borrowed from Marcella. Everything else had been thoroughly searched. Maximin’s suite was almost bare. Even his spare clothes had been taken.
Gretel filled in the details. Three large men had turned up just as I must have turned the corner away from the house. They’d waved the search order under Marcella’s nose and made her open the doors. Aside from an
