Past Crimes: A Compendium of Historical Mysteries

by Jennifer Ashley

  Sergius had stared at me in shock when I’d arrived in the doorway—I’d thought because of Selenius’s dead body. But perhaps he’d been running there ahead of me to cut me off, to try to keep me away, gaping in dismay when I’d found Selenius anyway.

  Cassia gave me a morose nod. “Seen Selenius dead only because he plays in the tunnels? Or because he killed the man himself?”

  “Why would he?” I tore off a piece of the bread, dunked it in my lentil broth, and stuffed it into my mouth. I chewed, spat the grit that lingered in every loaf into my hand, and swallowed.

  “Perhaps Selenius tried to beat him,” Cassia said quietly. “Suppose Selenius caught the boy sneaking around the tunnels, dragged him out, and beat him. The other men we spoke to said Selenius could be a brute. His nephew said so as well. Or—Sergius was a brothel boy, and Selenius might have grabbed him for another reason. Sergius could have fought back, grabbed a weapon—knife, even a sharp tile—and struck out.” She touched her throat.

  I shook my head, searching for any explanation to show Sergius could not possibly have done it. “The blow held strength. And landed in the exact place that would kill Selenius.”

  “He might have simply swung his weapon, and Fortuna did the rest. Even a small person can harm another when they are desperate enough.” Cassia spoke from experience, one she did not like to talk about.

  I drank a sip of wine. The vessel I held was copper, dented on one side of the lip, the bottom greenish from corrosion. “I don’t want it to have been Sergius,” I said in a firm tone.

  Cassia gave me an understanding look. “What will you do if…?”

  “Nothing.” I set down my cup. “The hairy slave who was seen leaving the shops has vanished. Selenius’s sister and nephew will have no one to prosecute. They’ll hunt through the countryside for the slave for a while, but then give up.”

  Cassia nodded. “And the matter will die.” She let out a long breath. “You know that even if Sergius or Balbus did not kill Selenius, either of them could have seen who did.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you ask them?”

  I tapped one foot under the table while Cassia watched me, her dark eyes troubled. Her lashes were as black as her hair.

  “No,” I concluded.

  Cassia lifted her spoon, delicately scooping up more of her broth. “Good,” she said.

  We finished our meal in silent understanding.

  In the tenth hour, when Rome was bathing, slumbering, or simply waiting for night, I took Cassia to the narrow street near the potters’ area of the city, and to the door Sergius had shown me.

  I’d wanted to explore alone, but as before, Cassia insisted on joining me.

  She’d wrapped herself well against the sun and prying eyes and carried a canvas bag that made an occasional clinking noise. We looked like any freedman and his slave out on an errand, except that everyone knew of me, and everyone we passed watched us then turned to the nearest passerby and pointed me out.

  I’d chosen the hour well though, and not many were in the hot streets to remark upon us. The lane in the Figlinae was completely deserted, shutters closed against the sun. Any person on the rare balcony high above us looked across the hills and dreamed of fresh air, paying no attention to the street below.

  I found the narrow door that did not look much different from doors that led into shops and apartments. It was locked, but I nudged stones with my foot until I found a sliver of metal similar to what Sergius had used to open the other door. I inserted it into the keyhole and wriggled it about, and soon the lock clicked.

  After returning the metal piece to its hiding place, I opened the door. The tunnel beyond was dark and damp, but at least it was cool.

  I went in first in case another desperate man lurked, waiting to attack, but the tunnel was quiet and empty. Even the rats had decided to find someplace to sleep.

  Cassia closed the door, fitting it carefully into the frame. Only then did she remove from her canvas bag the lamp and bottles of oil she’d brought. By the light from the cracks in the door, she filled the lamp and resealed the bottle, setting the lamp on the floor. My task was to light the wick.

  I struck stone against stone until a spark flashed and finally caught on the twist of linen. A tiny flame began, sputtered, and then rose, bathing us in a small, golden light.

  Cassia held her bag close when I reached for it, and waved for me to lead the way. What else she carried, I didn’t know—Cassia had only said she’d brought things to help us in the dark.

  The first part of the journey was easy, ten steps leading upward and then a straight tunnel diving back into the hill. I heard Cassia whispering behind me, counting, it sounded like.

  The light showed me what the darkness had hidden during my last journey here, that the tunnel was lined with brick, with a long, vaulted arch of cement and brick overhead to support the weight of the earth above us. Stones covered the floor, fitted into place with barely a space between them. The floor slanted inward slightly from the walls to carry any water that might accumulate down through grated drains to the sewers.

  “Stop!” At Cassia’s abrupt tone, I halted and swung back, ready to defend her.

  Cassia was rummaging in her bag, and as I reached her, she drew out a small wooden peg and a spool of string. She tied the string to the peg and took out a wooden mallet.

  “Drive this into the wall—just there.” Cassia held a peg to a crack in the wall and handed me the mallet.

  I secured the peg in a few short blows. Cassia unwound the string a bit, nodding at me to move on. She counted out the next twelve paces and stopped me again, holding up another peg for me to tap into the wall.

  I grunted as I finished. “At this pace, we will reach Selenius’s shop in maybe two days.”

  “If our lamp fails us and we’re in the pitch dark, you’ll be happy of the path I’m marking.” Cassia hefted the bag over her shoulder and unwound more string. “I do not want to spend my last days lost in the sewers.”

  I could not argue with her logic. I’d only found my way through the tunnels with the help of Sergius and Balbus.

  We went slowly along, Cassia halting me every twelve paces to secure another peg. I had to find handy cracks in the brick wall, so the string zigzagged up and down, but she was right—if we were here in the dark, we could follow the string back out, like Theseus and Ariadne in the minotaur’s labyrinth.

  We weren’t likely to meet ancient beasts back here, only humans, rats, mildew, and filth. Bards would never sing of our walk through the sewers of Rome.

  When we came to a junction I had to close my eyes and think very hard about how I’d come the other way. I’d been trying not to lose Sergius in the dark, not making notes of my progress.

  I remembered hurrying down a slope, hoping I wouldn’t have to wade through excrement from the nearest latrine. Ahead of us, one tunnel rose, and the other continued level.

  “This one,” I said, pointing to the rising tunnel.

  Cassia studied both directions as I held up the lamp. “Are you certain?”

  “No.” I started into the upward sloping tunnel.

  Cassia pattered behind me, halting me at the twelfth step. I tapped another peg into the wall. “Did you bring enough of these?” I asked, shouldering the mallet. “And how would you know?”

  “I calculated what we need based on the distance between the two points.” She gave me a nod. “I brought more than enough. Plenty of string too. We won’t get lost. Don’t worry.”

  I turned away and continued, ignoring her whispered counting behind me. She began softly singing the numbers after a time. Cassia liked to turn everything into a song.

  We came upon a door, a very ordinary one—vertical panels of wood held in place by horizontal cross pieces. I paused, holding the light to it, and Cassia stopped beside me.

  “This can’t be Selenius’s,” she said. “We haven’t come far enough.”

  I gently pushed on the door, findi
ng it locked. I hoped I wasn’t waking a family on the other side, one with a stern paterfamilias who kept an ax and a huge guard dog.

  “Selenius’s door will be locked.” I kept my voice quiet. “If his nephew hasn’t had it bricked up yet.”

  “He would not have had time since we left him this morning,” Cassia said, ever reasonable. “Even if his slave is taking care of it, they’d have to bring in the supplies and labor. I imagine his mother has young Gaius at home this afternoon. She was so very distressed at her brother’s passing. She hasn’t been well since … well, she was …” I knew Cassia could not bring herself to say the word.

  Selenius’s sister had been the only one who’d loved the man, it seemed. His colleagues had thought him a cheat and brute, his nephew a harsh taskmaster. But some men showed those they were fond of a different side.

  “The door will still be locked,” I finished. I should have brought Sergius’s lock pick with me instead of returning it to its place under the stone. But I had no wish to travel back through the tunnels to fetch the piece of metal.

  “No matter.” Cassia reached into her bag and pulled out an iron bar, which tapered to a flat edge at the end. That explained the clanking. “You’ll be able to pry it open.”

  I pretended to peer into the bag. “Did you bring dinner and a change of clothes as well? Perhaps a sedan chair to carry us home?”

  Cassia only gave me a look and returned the pry bar to the bag. “Let us get on, shall we?”

  I tramped ahead, stopping when Cassia’s singing reached numbers eleven and twelve again.

  In this way, we traversed the tunnels under the Esquiline Hill, circling down toward the Clivus Suburanus—I hoped.

  The lamp began to sputter before we reached our destiny, and Cassia replenished its oil from the jar. More efficiency. The string was a precaution, but I doubted Cassia had not brought enough oil. She’d have calculated the exact amount needed.

  Selenius’s door lay at the end of a side passage—I remembered that as we rounded a corner and found a door blocking us.

  There was no handle and the thing was, of course, locked, probably bolted or chained on the other side.

  Cassia silently handed me the pry bar and took the lamp. I placed the tapered end of the bar in the crack between door and doorframe and pulled.

  A board broke off with a loud snap. Cassia stepped back from the sudden draft that poured into the tunnel, holding her hand around the lamp’s flame so it would not die.

  I kept my body behind the door while I peered through the opening I’d made. The room beyond was dim, light coming through the cracks in boards over the stall window and around the ill-fitting outer door. But I recognized the cube of the room, the mosaic on the counter, the wall against which Selenius had been lolling.

  My shoulders slumped in some relief. We’d reached our destination, but on the other hand, we’d found nothing in the tunnel to tell us who else had been there.

  Cassia stumbled as she came to me, her bag swinging. I reached out to steady her, but she regained her feet quickly, peering down at what had made her trip.

  “A loose stone,” she said.

  “Kick it aside,” I said, wondering why she sounded so happy.

  “No, no—don’t you see? A loose stone in the floor.” Cassia put her feet together and rocked back and forth on a block that moved.

  “There must be many loose stones. It’s an old tunnel.”

  “But one just here.” Cassia waved the lamp dramatically at the floor, splashing oil. “Very convenient.”

  I understood her excitement, but I did not want to hope. Hope could be deadly. I crouched down and applied the pry bar to the stone.

  It came up after only a few tries to reveal a cavity beneath. Cassia dropped to her knees and peered inside with interest, then set down the lamp and started to reach into the hole.

  “Wait!” I stopped her—who knew what would crawl out of such a place? I thrust the iron bar into the space and lifted out a bundle of cloth, which clattered when I dropped it to the tunnel floor.

  Cassia tore open the knots that held the bundle closed and spread out the cloth.

  We stared down at a garment that had been splashed heavily with blood, now dried and brown. A thin-bladed knife rested in the middle of the linen, blackened with the same gore.

  Chapter 11

  Neither of us spoke as we gazed at the bloodstained clothes and knife.

  The man had stood in front of his victim, I decided. The tunic was splashed from neck to hem in a spray that would have come from the throat when it was cut. If the killer had stood behind Selenius, Selenius’s body would have blocked most of the blood.

  Cassia put her hand to her mouth and made a soft gagging sound.

  “Selenius knew his killer,” I said calmly. “Trusted him.”

  “How do you know that?” Cassia asked through her fingers.

  “He didn’t fight,” I said, remembering the body slumped under the counter. “His hands were unmarred.” They’d held no bruises or abrasions from Selenius trying to hit his killer.

  “You mean he did not expect the person to attack him.” Cassia swallowed as she looked back down at the cloth. “This tunic is far too big to fit Sergius.” Her words held relief, and the same relief coursed through me.

  “But not Balbus.” I calculated the garment’s dimensions. “This was made for a thin man.”

  I’d be sorry if Balbus had done this. He hadn’t struck me as being evil, in spite of his attack on me. He was desperate and terrified, as any runaway slave would be. If he’d killed Selenius it would have been to save himself.

  “Balbus was carrying a knife when he tried to stab you,” Cassia reminded me. “The killer discarded this one. And Balbus never wore this tunic.” She gingerly lifted an unstained part of the hem. “This is expensive linen, finely woven, the stitches precise and strong. This was made by a good tailor, and not long ago. It’s not worn enough to have been bought secondhand, though I grant it might have been stolen.”

  Tunics and other clothing were stolen from laundries all the time, the thieves then selling the garments for a nice sum.

  “The killer brought a change of clothing with him?” I asked doubtfully. “Meaning he knew the murder could get messy?” I shook my head. “No. This wasn’t planned. The two men began to argue, one caught up a knife—”

  “And already had a change of clothing ready,” Cassia said. “Because he comes to this shop often.”

  We looked at each other. I read sadness in her expression, pity, and regret.

  “We don’t have to tell anyone,” I pointed out. “We can put the tunic and knife back. No one has found it but us—who else would look?”

  “But the magistrates will go on hunting Balbus,” Cassia returned. “If he’s found, he’ll be thrown to the lions. Or they’ll come for you. No, Leonidas, we have to report this. We have laws for a reason.”

  I tasted bitterness. “Your same law would see Balbus torn apart, or me sent to the games for a crime I didn’t commit. It saw you taken from the home you’d known all your life and sent to serve a gladiator who was supposed to have broken you.”

  Cassia swallowed. “I know. But …”

  I grabbed the tunic and knife, rolled the cloth into a ball, and stuffed it into the canvas bag Cassia had let slide to the floor. I took up the pry bar and climbed to my feet.

  “We’ll take these out,” I said. “Burn them, throw them into the river, I don’t care. Maybe you can talk me around by the time we get out of the tunnels, and I’ll take them to a praetor instead—but I don’t know.”

  The fact that Cassia didn’t argue with me but only rose, took up the lamp, and followed told me much. She didn’t want to cause Selenius’s family more tragedy either.

  I had to concede she was correct in part—a killer couldn’t simply cut down men whenever he was angry with them. If he did it once and got away with it, there was nothing to stop him doing it again.

  But I’d
have the entire journey through the tunnels to think about it. I would put off the decision until we emerged into the light of day—or dusk, which it must be by now.

  My mistake was in letting Cassia walk behind me. Not until she cried out did I understand how foolish I’d been to think us in no danger.

  I turned. He held Cassia around the waist, a knife pressed to her throat. The hilt of the knife glittered softly in the light of the dropped lamp flickering at Cassia’s feet, her dark curls sliding free of her palla to frame her terrified face.

  My numbness fled. Rage like molten iron burned through my blood, clashing with the freezing dread at the image of Cassia falling, her throat slit, my Cassia dead before me.

  I dropped the bag but hefted the pry bar, the fighting man in me ready to strike at my enemy.

  “I like her,” young Gaius Selenius said, tears in his voice. “She was so kind to my mother. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  I wasn’t certain whether he meant Cassia or his mother in his last declaration, but it didn’t matter.

  A few moments ago, I’d been ready to hide the crime and let Gaius go. He’d rid himself of an uncle who’d been a fraud and beaten him whenever he’d liked, and I suspected worse besides.

  But if Gaius harmed Cassia I would kill him. He’d die, and then I would. It would be a tragedy worthy of any dramatist.

  “Let her go,” I snapped. “You can flee Rome—your mother can too. I’ll destroy the clothes and knife. We’ll let the magistrates think a passing madman killed your uncle.”

  Gaius shook his head, but the knife didn’t waver from Cassia’s throat. “I heard you talking. She wants to have me arrested.” His arm tightened on Cassia’s waist.

  Cassia spoke rapidly, her voice shaking. “Leonidas is a trained killer, Gaius. You’ll never escape him.”

  “I don’t care.” Gaius’s words were petulant. “I’ll fight him—he can kill me. I’ll die honorably, in a battle with you as witness.”

  “No,” I said in hard tones. If I killed a man of the merchant class, though he was a murderer himself, I’d likely not be granted the dignity of dying in the games. They might crucify me instead, just to set an example.