needn't be made worse by a lot of idle speculation.'
They did not look pleased with my high-handed methods, but they knew better than to argue. I was the man with the lictors and the im-perium. By this time the older men of my staff had caught up, and I beckoned them to me.
'Publius Severus,' I said, addressing an elderly freedman who for fifty years had been secretary to some of Rome's greatest jurists, 'I need you and your colleagues to search the law books. This man may have been killed by one of his slaves. I need to know if the old law that condemns all his slaves to crucifixion in such a case is valid only if the victim was a citizen. This man was a resident alien.'
'I can tell you right now, Praetor,' said Severus. 'The matter was addressed during the consulship of Clodianus and Gellius, when slaves were murdering their masters right and left. The ultimate punishment was inflicted only in the case of a citizen murder. The status of foreigners is little higher than that of slaves, and the matter is to be treated as an ordinary homicide. Only the murderer and his direct accomplices are subject to crucifixion.'
'Excellent,' I said, greatly relieved. The last thing I wanted to do was order several hundred crucifixions of people who were in no way responsible for their master's death. We have some truly monstrous, archaic punishments on our law books.
Regilius the horse master arrived and I dispatched him to scout for signs of an intruder. He began to ride slowly along the estate wall, his eyes on the ground.
I ordered everyone back to the villa and we mounted. Riding, this time at a leisurely pace, I discussed the latest murder with Hermes.
'It was someone he knew,' Hermes said.
'Clearly. Someone he had in his bedroom after dark, when the estate was closed up. That doesn't let the slaves off. He might have sent up one of the girls. He certainly had some fine stock.'
Hermes shook his head. 'He was a big, powerful man. No girl did
that.'
'Why not?' I said. 'A moment's inattention, he turns his back, and in goes the knife.'
'That stroke was delivered with great power and accuracy,' Hermes protested, 'right into the base of the skull where the spinal cord joins. It's a job for a trained swordsman.'
I nodded, musing. 'It's hard to imagine how a woman could have done it. I've known some dangerous women in my time, though. I know better than to rule them out.'
Before we reached the villa, Regilius caught up with us.
'That was quick,' I said. 'What did you find?'
'It was the same Roman-shod mare,' he said.
I thumped a fist on my saddle. 'The same murderer! I knew it!' Actually, I had known nothing of the sort, but it is always good to appear wise before subordinates. 'How did the killer tether the horse?' I asked. 'There are no trees between the walls and the bluff. Did you find sign of a picket pin?'
'No, the mare was held.'
'Held? There was an accomplice?' This I had not expected.
'Two horses rode up to the wall, both mares, both Roman shod,' he reported. 'From what I could make out, your killer went over the wall. Probably just stood in the saddle to do it. No problem with a wall that high. The other then rode off, leading the unridden horse, and waited about two hundred yards away. The first did the deed, then came back over the wall and the two of them rode away. Clever bit of planning, too.'
'How is that?'
'When I saw where the killer went over, I stood in my own saddle and pulled myself on top of the wall for a look. There's a stable on the other side. You can just step onto the stable roof, then down to the fence, then to the ground and make no noise. If anyone heard those horses, they'd just think they were hearing noises from the stable.'
'You're right,' I told him. 'Now you have two horses to watch for.'
'If I see sign of them,' he said, 'I'll let you know.'
When we reached my villa, Julia had to know what had been going on and I gave her a quick rendition.
'We have to inform Gelon,' she said.
'I'll tell him,' I said, 'but not just yet.'
'What are you going to do?' she asked, alarmed at my tone or my appearance.
'What I should have done sooner,' I told her. 'I'm going to the temple to get that poor girl. At least I have legal cause now.'
She nodded and Hermes grinned. 'Lictors!' he bellowed. Julia draped me in my formidable toga and we trooped off to the beautiful temple of Apollo. A hundred yards from the temple we could hear a woman screaming.
Julia grabbed my arm. 'Don't run. It's undignified. That woman is being beaten and she won't die of it before we get there.' I was not so certain. After the thrashing Hermes had described, could Charmian survive another as savage? In the courtyard behind the temple we found them.
Diocles the priest looked on coldly while a big slave wielded a whip on a young woman tied to a post. Her back and buttocks were crisscrossed with ugly stripes, and blood ran to her heels and formed a spreading puddle beneath her feet. But the screaming victim wasn't Charmian. It was the big German girl, Gaia.
'Stop this at once!' I yelled. One of my lictors knocked the whip wielder sprawling with his fasces.
Diocles turned to look at me, seeming almost dazed by this turn of events. 'Praetor? By what authority do you interfere with my conduct of my own household?'
'By my authority as
The old man turned paler than he already was, and his head began to tremble. 'Gaeto? Dead? Well, what is that to me? So the Numidian swine is dead. How dare you accuse me of murdering him, if the killing of such a man can be considered murder?'
'You had the greatest motive to kill him, since you believe his son murdered your daughter. As a resident alien he was under the protection of Roman law and I administer that law. Now fetch Charmian!' I was out of patience and the defiance went out of him.
'I can't,' he admitted, seeming to shrink.
'Are you saying she's dead?'
'No, she escaped from the ergastulum. And that German slut-' he jabbed a finger toward the suffering girl '- let her out! That is why she is being punished. And you have no right to interfere.' He seemed to regain a bit of his defiance.
'For the moment,' I told him, 'my power here is absolute. You may bring suit against me after I leave office in the fall. Of course, I may already have had you beheaded by then, so don't count on it.'
I walked to the post. Under Julia's solicitous direction, Hermes and the lictors had unbound the girl and lowered her to the ground. Her screams had subsided to a continuous moan.
'She won't be talking for a while,' Julia said. 'I'll have her carried to the villa and looked after.' She snapped her fingers and pointed. A lictor rushed back to the villa for help. They never stepped that lively for me.
'When did Charmian escape?' I asked the priest.
'The night before last, but I only learned of it this afternoon. Gaia had been taking her meals to her and concealed the fact that she had let the bitch out. When I sent for Charmian-'
'Why did you send for her?'
'I had some questions to put to her.'
And a whip ready, no doubt, I thought. 'Where is the other one? Leto?'
He summoned a slave and sent him to fetch the girl. 'Are you really serious about regarding me as a suspect?'
'Serious as Jupiter's thunderbolt,' I assured him. 'Something very unpleasant is going on here in southern Campania. I came here expecting a pleasant, unexciting stay and you people have disappointed me sorely. This puts me in a vengeful mood, and I am ready to inflict as many executions and exiles as it will take to set things
