The Eyes of Aurora

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  “This is entirely different, my friend.” He shuddered.

  “How can it be?”

  “To begin with, in the arena you’re not this close to it. At least we equestrians aren’t. Our seats, behind the senatorial section, put us at some distance from the floor, as you would know if you ever went to the games. It’s like seeing a trireme out at sea. You have no idea how big the thing really is until you’re standing beside it on the dock. Or, in this case, how revolting death is and how bad it smells. The perfume that’s sprayed in the arena masks that.”

  “Well, let’s see if we can learn anything from what the rats have left us.” We had to kick a few of the bolder beasts out of our way again.

  “The cause of her death is not in question, is it?” Tacitus said.

  “No. From the way the blood sprayed on the wall behind her, I’m sure she was still alive when she was decapitated.”

  Tacitus shook his head mournfully. “By the gods! Poor thing. I hope the blade was sharp and it took only one blow.”

  “That’s the best we could hope for her.”

  Without touching the woman, I knelt and slowly examined her body from her feet to what was left of her neck. The wheel to which she was tied was unusually large, about three cubits in diameter, with five spokes. Its size was emphasized by how small the woman was.

  “She’s young, isn’t she?” Tacitus said.

  “Yes. Hardly more than a child. I’d say she was seventeen or eighteen, if that.”

  The girl was tied with her back toward the wheel, exposing the front of her body to a whip before she had been decapitated and to three stab wounds in her belly. One of the stab wounds had something barely protruding from it. I didn’t touch it because I didn’t want to upset Aurora any more than she already was. I could look at it later.

  “I’ve never seen that large a wheel on a vehicle,” Tacitus said, and I turned my attention to him.

  “Nor have I.” I twisted the wheel slightly and found it wobbly. “It’s very weak. It would never hold the weight of a wagon. I suspect it was made especially for this purpose.”

  “From the stains on it,” Tacitus said, “I don’t think this was the first time it was used like this.”

  The woman’s wrists, ankles, and neck were tied where the spokes attached to the rim, so that her hands, feet, and—at one time—her head had hung over the rim. I had never had the opportunity to gaze down into a body like this. I could see tubes, flesh, and the spine.

  “I believe these are what lead from our mouths to our stomachs,” I said.

  Tacitus stood several paces away, not interested in any closer examination. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

  I tried to move one of her arms. “The death stiffness is still on her. I would say she’s been dead barely a day. From the way the bones of her spine are crushed, I’m afraid it took more than one blow to sever her head.”

  “I hope she was dead after the first blow.”

  “Yes. I can’t imagine the agony, the horror, of dying this way.” I ran my eyes down her body and peered more closely between her slender legs, offering the poor woman an unspoken apology for the indignity. Her pubic hair was shaved, adding to her childlike appearance. Roman woman typically remove other body hair, but not in that area. I did not touch her. “It’s even worse. She was violated, brutally violated.”

  I stood back and fought to keep my stomach under control. Nothing about this made any sense, any more than the wanton destruction of the house. I walked back over to Aurora and put a hand on her shoulder. “See if you can find a large piece of cloth so we can take her down and wrap her up.”

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “Take her back to the taberna. I can examine her there, where I’ll have more time and fewer distractions. Then I’ll give her some kind of funeral.”

  Aurora found a blanket in one of the rooms off the peristyle garden. I took it from her so she wouldn’t have to get any closer to the woman’s body. She looked like she was going to be sick again as my servants untied the woman. They had to break the joints of her limbs loose from the death stiffness. The cracking unnerved me as well. Before the woman was wrapped up, I studied her belly one more time.

  “Aurora,” I called, “how old do you judge Crispina was?”

  “Between thirty and thirty-five,” she replied over her shoulder. “Why?”

  “This woman was nowhere near that old. And I’m not sure she has had a child.”

  *

  While my freedmen wrapped the woman’s body and loaded her onto one of the donkeys, Tacitus, Aurora, and I walked around the rear garden one more time, to be sure we hadn’t missed anything. I craved some place to wash my hands, but the best I could do was rub them on my tunic, which I vowed to burn when I got back to Rome. I stopped beside a sturdy post stuck in the ground in the center of the space. It had a hook inserted into it near the top and was streaked with dark stains.

  “Look here,” I said. “There are some bloodstains—just drops, really—that make a trail from the wheel to this post.”

  “The head…?” Tacitus said.

  I nodded and walked from the wheel to the post. “I think someone carried the woman’s head from there to here.”

  “But why?”

  “We might understand that if we knew more about this post,” I said. “Call Segetius and Rufinus in here,” I told one of my freedmen.

  The two men had to be pushed and prodded by my servants. When they were standing before me, I asked them what purpose the post served.

  “Well, sir,” Segetius said, “that…that was Sextus Tabellius’ whipping post. If a slave displeased him, he would tie him to that post and give him however many lashes he thought would be enough punishment, and then a few more for good measure.” He turned his back to us and lifted his tunic to show the scars of a severe beating, surely more than one. “Rufinus’ back looks much the same, sir.”

  “So these are bloodstains,” I said, pointing to the dark splotches on the post.

  Both men nodded. “And the rest of the household was forced to watch,” Segetius said.

  “Is that why you decided not to stay here when you were emancipated?” Tacitus asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Rufinus said. “We’ve no good memories of the place.” He looked around and grimaced. Aurora, standing on the edge of our circle, patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

  “Did Tabellius emancipate you outright?” I asked.

  “No, sir. We paid for it.”

  So the man was a miser as well as a brute. Whatever their behavior might have been, I could not condone such cruelty on the part of any master. Beating a slave that badly teaches him nothing but resentment, even hatred. A horse, beaten that badly, would never be useful afterwards. And inflicting such punishment turns the master into a monster—a dominus into a daemon.

  Tacitus pointed to the foot of the pole and a streak down the side of it. “Can you tell what that is?”

  I nodded. “Someone was tied here with his back to the pole. Segetius, come here. And watch where you step.”

  Segetius trembled from bad memories as he walked up to the pole.

  “I’m sorry to put you through this, but I need to verify something.” I positioned him with his back to the pole and hands behind the post, as though they were tied.

  “Rather like Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship so he could listen to the Sirens’ song,” Tacitus said.

  “If he was tied that way,” Aurora said, pointing to the blood-soaked wheel, “he would be forced to watch the beheading, and I’ll bet his head was tied so he couldn’t turn away.”

  “I’m sure he would have welcomed wax in his ears, as well as over his eyes,” I said. “Now, what about this wheel?” I asked Segetius and Rufinus. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  They looked at one another, neither one willing to speak first.

  “You’re free men,” I said, “and your former master is dead. No on
e will harm you for telling the truth.”

  Rufinus shook his head and turned away, like a child confronted with something that arouses fear from deep within him.

  “Well, sir,” Segetius began slowly, “the wheel was Tabellius’ own invention. It was for punishing female slaves. You saw how that poor girl was tied.…”

  I looked at the disgusting thing again. It was as fiendish as Procrustes’ bed. The five spokes provided places to tie a woman’s legs, arms, and torso. She would be splayed, left vulnerable to whatever her master wanted to do to her.

  “Tabellius usually tied them facing the wheel,” Segetius said. “That allowed him—”

  I raised my hand to stop him. I didn’t need to hear anything else and I didn’t want Aurora to hear any more. My fondest wish at the moment was that Tabellius had died a painful death, preferably at the hands of his servants.

  Dismissing the two freedmen, Tacitus, Aurora, and I moved into the peristyle garden to stand around the piscina, which had no fish in it nor even water for them to swim in, if there had been any fish. It was sad to think any Roman house could fall into such a state of decay.

  “What do we make of it?” I asked. “We have no way to determine if this really is Crispina, although she seems too young anyway. If it is, where is the boy? If it’s not, did Crispina have anything to do with this woman’s murder?”

  “She couldn’t have, my lord,” Aurora protested. “If you’d seen what good care she took of her son, you wouldn’t be able to think such a thing.”

  “All I can see is what’s right before me—a woman, whom we cannot identify, brutally abused and murdered in a horrifying fashion. We have no idea why she was here or who was here with her. Lentulus says he did not see or hear anything. We’ll have to talk to Justus again. He’s the only one who might give us a clue.”

  “There’s another house to the south of this one,” Tacitus said. “Perhaps they know something.”

  “All right. We’ll talk with them before we leave. Now let’s search this place thoroughly one more time.”

  “Do you think we’ll find her head?” Tacitus asked.

  “I doubt it. I think someone cut it off to take it with them.”

  “Like Perseus with Medusa’s head?”

  “We should also be looking for Crispina’s bag,” Aurora said. “It wasn’t in her room, so she must have taken it with her.”

  “Was it large enough to hold a head?” Tacitus asked.

  *

  An hour of searching did turn up a bloody axe in one of the tool sheds, but no head and no other clothing that looked like it might have been worn recently by a young woman, and no small bag. I checked to make sure that the body was securely tied across one of the donkeys. Even though her feet protruded from the blanket, we made sure her headless state was concealed.

  “Segetius, you can lead that donkey behind yours,” I said. “Rufinus, you’ll ride with one of my men.”

  Lentulus must have had someone watching us because he returned as we were preparing to leave. “What did you find?” he asked.

  “Not what we were looking for,” I said. “A young woman was murdered here in the last day or so—”

  “By the gods! Who was she?”

  “We don’t know.” I decided not to give any details. There was no point in spreading lurid stories up and down the road. “We’re taking the body so we can give her a proper burial. If you see anything going on over here, please send someone to tell me. My house is on the Esquiline Hill.”

  “Yes, by all means.” He rubbed his chin. The servant who shaves him, I thought, must have trouble with that mole. “Do you think we’re in any danger here?”

  “I doubt it. It looks like someone seized on the opportunity of the empty house. I’m going to talk to Sextus Tabellius’ sons in Rome. Do you know where I can find them?”

  “The older one lives in an insula on the Aventine Hill, on the side away from the Circus Maximus.”

  “He’s practically a neighbor of mine,” Tacitus said. “We’ll find him.”

  “I’ll urge them to reach some decision about the place before it does become a menace to those of you around it,” I assured Lentulus.

  “Thank you. Remind them that I’m eager to purchase it.”

  We spent the next couple of hours talking with the owners of the two closest villas but learned nothing more than what Lentulus had told us. Sextus Tabellius kept to himself, rarely having any visitors. His familia was small. The servants who weren’t freed in his will went to live with one or the other of his sons. I encouraged everyone we talked with to keep an eye on the house and report any unusual activity to me.

  *

  It was midafternoon by the time we returned to Marinthus’ taberna. While Aurora went to the latrina, Tacitus and I took Marinthus aside and explained what was wrapped in the blanket. His jaw dropped.

  “Do you have someplace where we can keep her for the night?” I asked him.

  “There’s a shed out behind, sir.” He pointed toward the river. “Lay her in there. I’d rather my customers didn’t know.”

  “I certainly understand. My people have been ordered to keep quiet. Can you send someone to Ostia for a magistrate to take charge of her? Someone reliable—your son perhaps?” That would get him away from Aurora.

  “I’m afraid he’s not all that reliable, sir, much to my shame. His mother’s filled his head with notions of how handsome he is—all of that ‘gods’ gift’ nonsense. I’ll find a better man.”

  Thwarted on that front, I focused again on the problem at hand. “I want to examine the body one more time. I’ll leave money for the funeral.”

  “So you’re staying the night?”

  I looked at Tacitus. “I’m staying. Are you?”

  “Yes. I’ll need some place to sleep after I get as drunk as I possibly can. It’s the only way I’m going to get that horrible scene out of my mind.”

  “I’ve got just the thing, sir,” Marinthus said. He went behind the counter and found an unopened amphora. “It’s the strongest wine I’ve got.”

  “I’ll take it, and I’m going to sit with those fellows at the ROTAS-square table. Perhaps they’ve had some insight into the puzzle. Maybe it’ll take my mind off this business.” He made his way to the table, where the amphora appeared to be well received.

  “All right,” I said. “Do you have room for us?”

  “You’ve already paid for two more nights in the room that Crispina was using, and I have one other empty room next to it.”

  “I suppose those will do for Tacitus and me.”

  “You might try Justus’ place for the rest of your people. It’s not as nice as this, quite frankly, but it’s decent. My sister sees to that. Now, excuse me, sir. Customers are calling.”

  I sent two of my freedmen to Rome to let my household and Tacitus’ know that we would not return until tomorrow. The other two I sent to secure rooms in Justus’ taberna, including a room for Segetius and Rufinus. I wasn’t quite sure yet what I was going to do with them, but I wanted to keep them close in case they were more than the bumbling fools and maltreated servants they appeared to be.

  Aurora returned from the latrina. “What is your plan?” she asked, her tone carrying a hint of a challenge.

  “We’ll stay the night, take care of the woman’s body tomorrow and inform the magistrates in Ostia, then return to Rome by the afternoon.”

  “Isn’t there anything else we can do, Gaius?” Disappointment filled her eyes.

  “I don’t see what it would be.”

  “But she was murdered in such a horrible fashion.”

  “Murder is, by its nature, horrible, no matter how it’s done. Smothering someone in rose petals has the same result as stabbing or beating them to death. People get killed every day. Somebody will probably be killed in Rome by the time we finish this conversation. I regret that I cannot do anything in those cases or in this particular one, but I can’t. In so many cases, the killer is never found.
It frustrates me as much as it does you.”

  “What about the boy?” Aurora asked.

  “What about him? How do you expect me to find someone when the only clue I have is that he was taken to a particular villa on a certain day? But there’s no one at that villa now and no one has seen the boy since then.”

  “Couldn’t you find the farm Crispina and the boy came from?”

  My voice betrayed my growing impatience. “Oh, certainly. It’s somewhere south of Ostia.” I waved my arm in that direction, the rest of Italy. “That is, if she was telling the truth, and the odds in favor of that are not any I would bet on. Remember, she told you one story and told Marinthus an entirely different one and then another one to Justus. Logically, all of them can’t be true.”

  “All three could be false,” Aurora said.

  “Exactly. For all we know, she could have come from Milan or Brindisium or anywhere in between.”

  “Gaius, I’ve never known you to give up before. You always seem to know one more avenue to pursue.”

  “I am truly sorry, Aurora, but there comes a point when I must stop wasting my time and resources and simply admit that I can’t solve a problem. There are other things I need to attend to, such as—”

  “Such as the problems of your rich friends.”

  “I was going to say, such as protecting myself and my household from Regulus and trying to understand whatever is affecting my ­mother.”

  Aurora turned her back on me and folded her arms across her chest.

  Without touching her, I made one last effort. “When we get back to Rome, I’ll talk to Tabellius’ sons. They might know who’s using the house. That’s the only other thing I can do right now.”

  “I guess I’ll have to accept that,” Aurora said over her shoulder as she started up the stairs.

  I opened my mouth to call her back. No servant should ever speak to her master like that and then flounce off without being dismissed. But then I thought, What if she didn’t come back? Would she defy me that blatantly? I wasn’t sure of the answer to those questions. What had begun as an effort to improve my relationship with my own slave—admittedly my favorite slave—had driven an even thicker wedge between us. At this rate, I might as well sell her, marry Livilla, and be done with it.