Pretty soon I had her giggling as I set out to demonstrate that the parts of me that were not befuddled by my cold were even livelier than usual.
Winter does have some advantages.
An hour later I was soundly asleep again, when the world began waking up. The light was fading into dusk; all the Aventine bad people were banging their doors and leaving home to cause trouble. Young boys who ought to have been going home came kicking balls against apartment walls with all the force of seige engines. Dogs barked. Pans rattled on griddles. From overcrowded homes all around us the familiar scent of very old cooking oil, infused with burnt fragments of garlic, began to waft skywards.
Our baby started crying as if she thought she had been abandoned for ever. I stirred. Helena left me and went to Julia, just as a visitor arrived. For a few moments Helena managed to fend him off, but then she opened the door a crack and put round her head. She had one hand pushing in a comb to try and right her tangled hairstyle.
“Marcus, if you feel up to it, I think you'll want to come and see Anacrites.”
She knew that even when healthy I never felt up to that confrontation. The restrained way she spoke told me there was something up. Still luxuriating in drowsiness after our lovemaking, I mouthed you're beautiful!, to enjoy the sensation of being suggestive out of sight of Anacrites.
Helena was keeping him out, as if the rumpled scene of our passion ought to remain private. I nodded to show I would dress and join them.
Helena then said quietly: “Anacrites has brought some news. Rumex, the gladiator, has been found dead.”
32
WE HAD LOST the best part of a day.
“Olympus!” complained Anacrites, as I dragged him in my wake past the Temple of Ceres on my way down from the Aventine. “What's special about the death of a gladiator, Falco?”
“Don't pretend you can't see it. Why bother to tell me at all, if you think it's a natural occurrence? Jupiter” Rumex was fighting fit, in every sense. I met him. He was as solid as a frontier rampart-”
“Maybe he caught your cold.”
“Rumex would soon scare off a little cold” I was ready to ignore it myself now. My windpipe was on fire, but I was holding back the cough even though I was agitated and hurrying Helena had flung my Gallic coat over me, and topped it off with a hat. I would live-unlike the darling of the arena crowds. “this fever isn't fatal, Anacrites- however much you would like to think so in my case.”
“Don't be unfair-” He tripped on a kerbstone, which made me smile with satisfaction; he had stubbed his toe so hard it would go black and shed the nail. I jumped down the middle stairs three at a time and let him follow as best he could,
At the barracks a large crowd had gathered. A tall pair of perfectly matched cypress trees in handsome stone urns had been set either side of the gate. There, a solemn porter was receiving small commemorative tributes with apparently sincere thanks, moving on with discreet efficiency from one donor to the next. The crowd was mainly composed of women, on the whole silent though occasionally emitting thin cries of distress.
While I lay ill, Anacrites had already begun auditing the Saturninus empire; as we walked, he had told me that our work would be taking place not here, but at the office of an untrustworthily helpful accountant whose office was on the other side of town. That had not surprised me. Saturninus knew all the subtle tricks of being difficult. However, our audit gave us a useful right of entry to any of his property. When we ordered them to let us into the barracks, they did.
Inside the gate, out of sight from the street, the mourners' tributes were being stripped open on a table, the valuables removed methodically and the trash dumped in a large bin for later disposal.
I led Anacrites directly around the various courtyards to the cell where Rumex used to live. The minders who had dallied with Maia and Helena were missing. In their place, guarding a heavily locked door, were a couple of beef-ox colleagues of the dead man.
“Sorry about this-” I adopted an expression of faint annoyance as if we were all being inconvenienced. “I dare say it's nothing to do with us, but when something like this happens while we are conducting a Census enquiry we have to check the scene-”
That was a complete lie. The slab-chested fellows in leather loincloths were unused to facing devious officials. In fact they were heavily trained to do just what they were told. They sent a lad to see the man who had possession of the key. He thought it was Saturninus asking for him, so he came along meekly. There were a few doubtful glances among the various personnel, but it seemed easiest to let us do what we wanted, then to lock up again quickly and pretend nothing had occurred.
So, by a mixture of our bluff and their inefficiency, we gained entry to the dead man's quarters. It was easy, even after a murder. I did wonder if last night somebody else had used similar tactics.
When we walked in, to our surprise, Rumex was still there.
In this situation there was more chance than usual that Anacrites and I could make our partnership work' We were both professionals. We both recognised an emergency. We had to act as one. If Saturninus were on the premises, he might any minute hear of our arrival and race to intervene. So I glanced at Anacrites, then we moved in together. We needed to scour the place rapidly for clues, taking notes, each serving as witness to what the other found. We had one chance to do this. There could be no mistakes.
We had entered not a tiny cell with a straw pallet, which was all most fighters ever acquired, but a tall room about ten feet square. Its walls, once plain, had been painted in a rich dark red then completely covered with graffiti of arena scenes. Stickmen with swords chased each other, stabbed each other, fell down and stared up in mute appeal at each other. Lively fights were depicted all over the middle ground and upper frieze. Thracians hung their heads and died above the dado; myrmillons were being dragged out lifeless below it while Rhadamanthus, King of the Underworld, supervised in his beaked mask, accompanied by Hermes with his snaky staff.
Rumex had owned a lot of stuff. Armour and weapons would be kept by his master, but he had been laden with gifts. A vibrant Egyptian carpet, which most people would have preserved as a treasured wall-hanging, lay rucked by casual usage on the floor Apart from the bed, the furniture comprised huge chests, one or two standing open to reveal mounds of tunics, cloaks, and furnishings, all presumably donated by admirers On a tripod a smaller coffer revealed a jumble of gold chains, armlets and collars. Goblets of exquisite workmanship stood on burnished trays alongside others that were in execrable taste, though stuck with costly gems. Since Saturninus would have extracted the greater percentage of what was dotingly presented to his hero, the original tally must have been enormous. (An appealing prospect for us two as auditors, since it had not been represented in the lanista's accounts.)
The two gladiator guards and the keyman were peering in after us, starting to grow nervous. Anacrites fetched out a note tablet; despite his bored manner, his stylus moved at speed. He was listing the stuff I nodded and went to the bed, like a curious tourist.
Rumex lay on his back as if he were asleep. He was wearing only a single white tunic, probably an undergarment. One arm, that nearest to me, was slightly bent, as if he might have been leaning up on his elbow but had fallen back as he died. His great head faced towards me as I stood at his bedside. Beneath him was the kind of coverlet under which imperial princesses snuggle up to their lovers. Its rich nap must be tickling the back of his thick neck.
It was the neck that transfixed my attention. Around it lay a heavy gold chain; but not the one with his name on that I had seen him wearing before. The new one was pulled tight across the throat, but at the back of the head it looked looped up, where it would have caught in the hair had the gladiator not been so closely shaven. The chain lying oddly was intriguing enough. Either somebody had tried to remove it-or Rumex had been pulling it on over his head.
That was not what made me draw so sharp a breath. A short trail of congealed blood disfigured the luxurious bedcover beneath the dead man's cheek. It ran from a small wound where Rumex had been stabbed through the throat.
