instead of the equivalent of my friend Petronius Longus, we had a visitation from a centurion and two sidekicks. Before they even said what they wanted, my uncle assumed the look of a naughty stable-boy. He rushed to lead away the centurion to his study - though the soldiers pretended they thought it was more discreet for them to stay behind on the roof terrace to supervise the rest of us. They had spotted the food, of course.
Good ploy, noble squaddies! I immediately questioned them on what had brought them to annoy my uncle.
They were commendably demure - for all of five minutes. Helena Justina soon softened them up. She filled fresh bread rolls with sliced sausage for them, while Albia passed around olive bowls. No soldier has been born who can resist a very polite seventeen-year-old girl with clean hair and dainty bead necklaces; she must have reminded them of their little sisters back at home.
‘So what’s the big mystery?’ I asked them, grinning.
Their names were Mammius and Cotius, a long streak of wind with a broken belt-buckle and a short pot of pig’s fat with his neck-scarf missing. They wriggled with embarrassment, but through mouthfuls of breakfast they inevitably told me.
Theon, the Librarian, had been found in his office that morning. A garland of roses, myrtle and green leaves, the garland with which Cassius had bedecked all of us last night at dinner, was lying on his work-table. This garland was a special order, about which Cassius had been meticulous, personally selecting the choice of leaves and style. It had led their centurion to the flower-seller who made it - and she fingered Cassius from the address where she delivered the foliage. Egypt was a bureaucratic province so the house was on some register as rented by Uncle Fulvius.
‘What was up with Theon?’
‘Dead.’
‘Dead! But he never ate any of the pastry chef’s poisoned cakes!’ Helena laughed to Albia. The soldiers became nervous and pretended they had not heard her.
‘Foul play?’ I asked, making it casual.
‘No comment,’ announced Mammius with great formality.
‘Does that mean you were not told, or you never saw the body?’
‘Never saw it,’ swore Cotius self-righteously.
‘Well, nice lads don’t want to go looking at corpses. It might make you queasy ... So why was the army called in? Is that usual?’
Because, the lads informed us (lowering their voices), Theon’s office was locked. People had had to break the door down. There was no key, not in his door, on his person, or anywhere inside the room. The Great Library was stuffed with mathematicians and other scholars, who were drawn to the commotion nosily; these great minds deduced that someone else had locked Theon in. In the traditions of the academic world, they loudly announced their discovery. A rumour flew around that the circumstances were suspicious.
The mathematicians had wanted to solve the puzzle of this locked room themselves, but a jealous philosophy student who believed in civic order, reported it to the Prefect’s office.
‘The snitching beggar must have scampered there on
‘Perhaps the student wants to work in administration when he gets a real job. He thinks this will enhance his profile,’ Helena sniggered.
‘Or perhaps he is just a nasty sneak.’
“Oh that would not debar him from government administration!’ I could see Mammius and Cotius thought Helena an extremely exciting woman. Sharp lads.
Anyway, the sneak had landed us in it. At this moment, the centurion was instructing Fulvius to produce yesterday evening’s menu and confirm whether any of us had suffered ill effects. My uncle would be quizzed on whether Cassius or he had had any grudge against Theon.
‘Of course,’ the soldiers admitted to us frankly, ‘as visitors to the city, you people are bound to be the first suspects. When any crime happens, it helps public confidence if we can say that we have arrested a suspicious bunch of foreigners.’
VI
I left Helena and Albia to keep the soldiers occupied and hoofed downstairs. I found Fulvius and Cassius calm. Cassius looked slightly red in the face, but only because his qualities as a host were in question. Fulvius was as smooth as pounded garlic paste. Interesting: had these old boys had to answer to officialdom before? They operated in tandem and had a fund of tricks. They knew to sit wide apart, so the centurion could only look at them one at a time. They commiserated and pretended they were eager to assist. They had ordered up some very sticky currant pastries, which he was finding hard to eat while he tried to concentrate.
They waved me away, as if there was no problem. I stayed.
‘I am Didius Falco. I may have a professional interest.”
‘Oh yes,” said the centurion heavily. ‘Your uncle has been explaining who you are.’
‘Oh well done, Uncle Fulvius!’ I wondered just how he had described me - probably as the Emperor’s fixer, hinting it should give Cassius and him immunity. The centurion seemed unimpressed, but he let me nose in. He was about forty, battle-hardened and well up to this. He had forgotten to put on his greaves when he was called out in a hurry, but otherwise he was smart, clean-shaven, neat - and he looked observant. Now he had three Romans pretending they were influential citizens and trying to baffle him, but he kept his cool.
‘So what do we call you, centurion?’
‘Gaius Numerius Tenax.’
‘Which is your unit, Tenax?’
‘Third Cyrenaica.’ Raised in North Africa, the next patch along from here. It was customary not to station troops in their home province, just in case they were too loyal to their cousins and neighbours. So the other legion at Nicopolis was the Twenty-Second Deiotariana: Galatians, named for a king who had been a Roman ally. They must spend a lot of their time spelling it for strangers. The Cyrenians probably watched and jeered.
I made my pitch to win his friendship: ‘My brother was in the Fifteenth Apollinaris - he was based here briefly before Titus collected them for the Judaean effort. Festus died at Bethel. I heard the Fifteenth were brought back afterwards, but temporarily’
‘Surplus to requirements,’ Tenax confirmed. He stayed polite but the old-comrade routine had not fooled him.’ Packed off to Cappadocia, I believe.’
I grinned. ‘My brother would think himself well out of that!’
‘Wouldn’t we all? We must have a drink,’ Tenax offered, making the effort though probably not meaning it. Fortunately he did not ask where I myself had served, or in what legion; if I had mentioned the disgraced Second Augusta and ghastly Britain, he would have frozen up. I did not push him now, but I intended to take him up on the friendly offer.
I subsided and let Tenax run the show. He seemed competent. I myself would have begun by finding out how Fulvius came to know Theon, but either they had covered that already or Tenax assumed that any foreigner of my uncle’s standing automatically moved in those circles. This begged the question: what standing? Just who did the centurion think my wily uncle and his muscular partner were? They probably said ‘merchants’. I knew they engaged in procuring fancy art for connoisseurs; back in Italy my father had his sticky fingers in it. But Fulvius was also an official negotiator for corn and other commodities, supplying the Ravenna fleet. Everybody knows that corn factors double up as government spies.
Tenax chose to start by asking what time Theon left us last night. After a few arguments, we worked out when it was; not late. ‘My young guests were still tired after travelling,’ scoffed Fulvius. ‘We broke up at a reasonable hour. Theon would have had time to return to the Library. He was a terrible work-slave.’
‘The responsibility of his position preyed on him,’ added Cassius. We all exchanged pitying glances.
Tenax wanted to know what had been served at dinner. Cassius told him and swore that we had all tried all the dishes and drinks. The rest of us were alive. Tenax listened and took minimal notes. ‘Was the Librarian drunk?’
‘No, no.’ Cassius was reassuring. ‘He won’t have died of overindulgence. Not from last night.’
‘Any signs of violence?’ I put in.
Tenax shut off. ‘We are looking into that, sir.’ I could not complain about his avoidance tactics. I never gave
