SPQR VIII: The River God's Vengeance Page 18

  “You judge men shrewdly, Andromeda.” I, too, was always on the lookout for contacts who could be of use to me. It struck me that this woman was uniquely placed to ferret out useful information about important men, both residents and visitors. Some have held that such information would be unworthy of the dignity of a Roman official. I’d never thought that way.

  “How long would I last if I didn’t?” She seemed to be thinking along the same lines as I. Well, we were both at the peak of our professions. “A man like you, on your way up, needs to know such things. You understand, I have to be discreet about certain of my patrons, the regulars and the ones in a position to do me real harm.”

  “But you can always use a friend and protector, can’t you?”

  “I can never have too many of those. But I am a professional woman, accustomed to charging for my services.”

  “Understood. I am never reluctant to pay for good value. But the matter we were discussing comes under the heading of an official investigation.”

  She sighed. “Just so you don’t get in the habit of expecting free information. Anyway, those two men talked for a while. At one point they started to argue, and a bouncer went over and rapped on their table with his stick. They quieted down, and that was the end of it.”

  “Send the bouncer to me,” I said. “He might have overheard something.”

  She thought for a moment. “You’re out of luck. It was Astyanax, and he was killed at the funeral games for Terentius Lucanus in Capua four months ago.”

  “Why did it have to be a clumsy swordsman?” I groused. “Oh, well, no help for it.”

  “A short time after that the man in the hooded cloak got up and left.”

  “He left?”

  “Went right out through the front door. So Lucilius went upstairs with Galatea—”

  “Wait a moment. Was Galatea with them the whole time?”

  She thought about that. “No. She led Lucilius to the cloaked man’s table, then she went off. She went back to the table either just before the cloaked one left or just after. I wasn’t keeping a close eye on all this, you know. I had plenty of other patrons to attend to, even at that time of year.”

  “All right. She went upstairs with Lucilius. Did she murder him?”

  Andromeda shrugged her white shoulders. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t up there with them. Late in the evening there was a commotion. Another of the girls was taking a customer upstairs and she rapped on the door, didn’t get any answer, and went on in. She started screaming, and I ran up there. Lucilius was on the fioor, alone and dying from a stab wound.”

  “Where was Galatea?”

  “Nowhere to be found, then or later.”

  “And you didn’t see her go?”

  “This isn’t a prison. It’s not hard to leave. She could have just wrapped up in a palla and gone out.”

  “In most lupanaria,“ I said, “the girls are kept locked up when they aren’t on duty, and the door is guarded.”

  She snorted contempt. “And you’ve seen what frightened, beaten, washed-out drudges they are, haven’t you? My customers come here for enjoyment and congenial companionship, and I provide it. They pay more here than anywhere else, but the girls and boys are skilled, good-looking, and willing. There’s something wrong with men who go to a prison for sex.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me there. So he was still alive when you found him?”

  “Not by much, but breathing. I sent for the physician and he did what he could, but it was too late. The man babbled a little, nothing I could understand, then he croaked.”

  “Who was the physician?”

  “The one from the ludus, Asklepiodes.”

  “If you sent for him, Lucilius lasted more than a few minutes.”

  “I didn’t have to send far for Asklepiodes,” she said. “He was right down here in the courtyard, like he is most nights.”

  “Asklepiodes is a regular?” I asked, astonished.

  “He ought to be. He’s the only man in Rome who gets his entertainment here for free. We have an arrangement. A place like this needs a physician’s attention regularly.”

  So Asklepiodes had a special arrangement with Andromeda? Well, well. “Is he here tonight?”

  “He was here earlier. I’ll find him for you if he’s still around.” She raised a hand to the back of her wig and a man appeared at her side. Apparently she had a system of secret signals. The man was well built, heavily bearded, and wearing a woman’s dress. “Find the Greek doctor. Send him here,” she said. The odd person disappeared.

  “What did you do once he’d died?” I asked.

  “As I said, I recognized him, so I sent a boy to find his house and tell his family, or whoever was there, but he just wandered around lost all night. Have you ever tried to find an unfamiliar house in the dark? Anyway, there wasn’t much to be done before daylight. After that the Libitinarii arrived, and then the praetor’s man to get my story.”

  A moment later, Asklepiodes arrived, beaming. He bowed to Andromeda. “Beauteous hostess,” then to me, “distinguished Aedile, how may I be of service?” The order in which he ranked our relative importance did not escape me.

  “Sit down, old friend,” I said. “We were just discussing a murder.”

  “You rarely talk about anything else,” he said.

  “You two know each other, I see,” Andromeda said.

  “For a long time,” I told her. “I can see that he hasn’t been bragging of our friendship to raise his stock around here.”

  “In this neighborhood, my intimacy with great champions of the arena gains me more esteem than the friendship of any number of senators.” He was perfectly unabashed. “Are you still investigating the killings you were looking into yesterday?”

  “He’s looking into the death of that ex-aedile,” Andromeda informed him.

  “As it occurs, I think that man’s death and the killing of Lucius Folius and his wife may be—”

  “Folius!” Andromeda spat on the colorful tiles. “The day he and that sow died ought to be commemorated as a holiday, with sacrifices and rejoicing!”

  “You knew Folius?” I asked, startled.

  “Ha! Who didn’t?” She laughed without mirth. “When he moved up to Rome from whatever town must have kicked him out—”

  “Bovillae, I understand,” I said.

  “Bovillae, then. A happy town without that couple. Anyway, when he got here with all his money and his taste for blood and pain, he started working his way through all the lupanaria in Rome, starting with mine.”

  “Rumor has it,” I said, “that you cater to every imaginable taste.”

  “Not every one of them,” she insisted. “Think about it: If you rented horses, would you rent one to a man who’d beat it and run it until it collapsed and return it to you half dead?”

  “Those girls and boys last year,” Asklepiodes asked, “Folius was the one?”

  “Him and the woman both,” she said, nodding. “Thought they could buy me off with a few coins and come back for more of the same. I told them I’d leave orders with my men to knock them on the head and dump them in the river if they ever came back. I couldn’t keep a single girl here unchained if I let them be treated like that. I don’t mind a little playacting, no harm in that, and I have people specially trained for it. Those two wanted the real thing.”

  “I saw how their household slaves were treated,” I admitted. “There really should be provision in Roman law to prevent such things.”

  “I heard later that they found places to cater to them,” she went on grimly. “Slaves die all the time. Nobody looks into it.”

  It occurred to me that I was looking into the very timely deaths of two people who might have been among Rome’s most illustrious mass murderers. They were merely careful about whom they killed, never doing away with anyone of rank. It was rare for rich equites to make themselves so repugnant to so many persons in so brief a time. Everybody from Proconsul Antonius Hybrida to madam
e Andromeda, yet their neighbors barely knew who they were!

  “I want to see the room where Lucilius was killed,” I said.

  “Whatever for?” she asked.

  “You never know what such a place will tell you,” I answered.

  “My friend has created his own branch of philosophy,” Asklepiodes assured her, “or perhaps a form of necromancy. Sometimes it is as if the spirits of the slain speak to him.”

  Andromeda rubbed an ivory ring she wore on her forefinger and kissed it. “I want no dealings with the dead here, but I’ll show you the room.” She rose to her full, amazing height, and I followed her, with Asklepiodes at my side and Hermes padding along behind. I decided I’d better count my money when we got home. The boy might have slipped off with one of the girls while we conversed.

  The stairways that connected the upper galleries were arranged in pairs. Those nearest the courtyard were for upward traffic, those next to the wall for descending. It was most orderly, almost like a theater. Some of the rooms we passed were illuminated, others were dark. From within came sounds of music and cries of passion and sounds that defied interpretation. It might have been amusing to pause and try to interpret some of these noises as an intellectual exercise, but duty called.

  Andromeda led us to a door and rapped on it. There was no sound from within, so she pushed open the door. Light poured out, its source a fioor lamp that supported four wicks. The room was no larger than necessary for the activities inside. Its furnishings, beside the lamp, were a small table holding a basin, pitcher, and washing materials; a bronze brazier that held no coals that evening; and a rather commodious couch with ample cushions and a backrest.

  “The larger rooms are on the ground fioor,” Andromeda said. “Some of them are for groups and have special equipment. Nothing fancy here.”

  I walked over to the room’s single window. Its frame was of fragrant cedar, a luxurious touch. The inner shutter was likewise cedar, carved in an intricate fret to admit light and air. The solid, outer shutter was of painted pine. I opened both shutters and looked out. It was a straight drop to the paved square below. I could see no convenient place in the room for attaching a rope. The killer or killers must have left by the door.

  “Are you certain this is the room?” I asked. “Except for those on the ground fioor, they must be much alike.”

  Andromeda indicated the door, which was painted red and bore a stylized design of a lyre. “Most of the girls and slave staff can’t read, so I don’t use numbers. I use a different color door on each of the three upper fioors: blue for the second, yellow for the third, and red on this one. Each door has a symbol for one of the gods that everyone knows: lightning for Jupiter, a moon for Venus, a spear for Mars, a serpent staff for Mercury, and so forth. I tell a slave, ‘Go up to Yellow Hercules,’ he knows to go to the third fioor and find the door with the club on it.” She rapped the door with a knuckle. “Lucilius was killed in Red Apollo; I’m not likely to forget it.”

  “A very logical system,” I commended. I studied the brazier. “Did this hold a fire that evening?”

  “Certainly. I’ve said it was cold. But you saw the fire buckets standing outside the doors. I always—”

  “Please,” I said, gesturing for silence, “I’ve told you I’m not here enforcing the fire regulations. Your precautions are exemplary. Asklepiodes, how did you find the victim?”

  “Breathing his last. He had been stabbed beneath the ribs on the left side, consistent with a right-handed assailant. As near as I could discern by candlelight, the weapon had been a straight, double-edged dagger. The wound was approximately five inches long, slightly curved as the blade followed the contour of the rib cage. Viscera, also lacerated, protruded from the wound. It was certain death for any man.”

  “But not immediate,” I commented.

  “No, a man may linger for days with such a wound, depending upon which internal blood vessels have been severed. I saw immediately that his bleeding was severe. His toga was soaked—”

  “He was still wearing his toga?”

  “Yes, he was fully dressed.”

  I took another look at the door, swung it on its hinges. It was set almost in the center of the wall, with about three feet of space on each side of it. This room had no window opening onto the balcony outside. I decided that the room had told me all that it was going to.

  “Let’s go,” I said. As we descended into the courtyard, I asked, “Do you remember any other distinguished persons being here that night?”

  Andromeda shook her head. “The killing pretty much drove everything else from my mind.”

  “And you?” I asked Asklepiodes.

  “I had been entertaining some friends from the Museum in Alexandria. They were on a visit to Rome, staying at the Egyptian Embassy. I am sure if there had been any Romans of distinction present, I would have pointed them out to my colleagues.”

  “So much for that, then. Andromeda, please describe Galatea.”

  “A pretty girl, but then all of mine are. About sixteen, dark hair, brown eyes. She’d only been here for a couple of days. She wasn’t from Rome, but she wasn’t from very far away either, to judge by her accent. A small town girl. I get a lot of those.”

  “Were there any other disappearances at that time?”

  “What do you mean?” Andromeda asked.

  “Was there any other member of your staff here that night that you never saw again afterward?”

  She looked at Asklepiodes. “What’s your friend getting at?”

  He smiled happily. “Just bear with him. It often makes sense after a while. Like Socrates, he comes at the truth by asking questions rather than making pronouncements.”

  “As you will. Now that I think of it, there was a bouncer I’d hired about the time I took Galatea on. He said his name was Antaeus and that he was from the south and had come up to Rome to fight in the big Games. He was a huge brute, like most of them, and wore a heavy beard, the way citizens hardly ever do.”

  “And he disappeared after the murder as well?”

  “Right. This is always part-time work for the funeral fighters. The only reason I noticed he’d gone was when he didn’t show up to collect a few night’s wages. I never connected it with the killing, though. These boys usually work during the day as bullies for one of the gang leaders, so they end up dead or laid up with wounds pretty often and I don’t take much notice.”

  By this time, we were at the courtyard entrance to the tunnel. “Andromeda, you have been of great assistance to me in this matter, and I hope to see more of you in the future.”

  She smiled fetchingly, something she did well, since she did it for a living. “Aedile, you will always be welcome in the Labyrinth whether in or out of office.”

  She left and Asklepiodes started to go, but I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just another moment of your time, my friend.”

  “Assuredly, as much of it as you wish.”

  We began to stroll through the tunnel, Hermes close behind us. “There are a couple of matters I thought our hostess had no need to hear. She mentioned that Lucilius babbled something she couldn’t understand. Could you make anything out?”

  “I cannot be certain. He seemed to be in the delirium that often precedes death and not in his best voice. It sounded to me like he was saying ‘?lthy dog, filthy dog.’ His teeth were tightly gritted, but that much was clear.”

  “Are you certain he was using the masculine form?” I asked, thinking that the man might have been calling the treacherous whore a bitch.

  “Yes, the word was masculine.”

  “And the wound you describe: Not only did the dagger have to penetrate a heavy woolen toga and a layer or two of clothing beneath that, but it was dragged upward several inches. That takes a strong man.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would,” he agreed, nodding.

  “And it didn’t occur to you to point this out at the time?” I asked, exasperated. “A whore can easily murder a man, but first she g
ets him out of his clothes, relaxed and unsuspecting. Then she can stick a tiny knife into his jugular or slip a stiletto into his heart, and he’ll die practically without noticing it!”

  “Yes, that makes sense. But, my old friend, I was summoned to give the man what aid I could, which was very little indeed. I was never questioned by an investigator.” This, to Asklepiodes, took care of everything.

  I sighed. Sometimes I wondered whether I was the only man in the world who reasoned in the fashion I did. “And you’ve done well, if somewhat belatedly. Thank you. I thank you.”

  “Always happy to be of assistance to Senate and People,” he assured me, and went off to rejoin his companion for the night, probably some painted, pretty boy. He was, after all, a Greek.

  “I hope you’ve kept your ears open through all this,” I said to Hermes. He was purchasing a bundle of small torches from a vendor.

  “Yes, though those dancers strained my eyes.” He ignited a torch at a wall sconce and preceded me back toward the bridge. “The whore Galatea sounds like she might have been that poor, whipped girl we saw at the insula.”

  “My own thought. Andromeda said her accent sounded local but not Roman. Bovillae is only about thirty miles down the Via Appia. People there talk almost like Romans. And the bouncer, Antaeus—”

  “The big slave. He was hiding behind the door. There was plenty of space there and no window in the wall on the courtyard side where someone might see what was going on inside.”

  “I’ve taught you well, Hermes!” I commended him. Sometimes the boy was almost worth what he ate, drank, and stole. “Lucilius must have been attacked and stabbed as soon as the door was shut. Then the big slave and the girl would have left the room separately, after an interval. With all the comings and goings in a place like that, who would notice?”

  “That’s why they went to work there a few days before the killing!” Hermes said, getting excited. “They needed to be there long enough so nobody would notice them, and they needed to pick a good room to carry it out. They settled on one way on the top fioor, with plenty of room behind the door and no window in the front wall! The big man went up there earlier; so if anyone knocked, he’d yell that the room was occupied.”