Under Vesuvius

by John Maddox Roberts

  “A pervert,” Cicero said without hesitation. “We’ve seen them in court often enough. The mad ones who kill repeatedly and perform little rites every time: perform unspeakable acts, take body parts, or else dress their victims in beautiful clothes or pose the bodies in grotesque ways or perform ceremonies of their own sick devising. It happens all too commonly.”

  “She was killed near water, like Gorgo,” Hermes noted.

  “Yes, that could be a connection,” I agreed. “The mad killers Marcus Tullius referred to often employ such ritualistic repetitions. But why take such care with a victim, then strip her naked?”

  We thought about this for a while, and it was Hermes who had the inspired answer. “When she ran, she must have had to stop frequently in the fields to rest. By the time she arrived at her protector’s house, her clothes would have been filthy with dirt and blood. This friend must have given her new clothing.”

  “But why take it off—” Then I saw what he was driving at. “Of course! She was given slave livery. Many of the great houses here dress their slaves in distinctive uniforms. The killer couldn’t afford to have her found in the livery of his own household.”

  “Very astute,” Cicero approved. “You may have the answer.”

  “That leaves us the motive for her murder,” I said.

  “She may have simply known too much,” Cicero said. “There has been a great deal of bloodshed around here lately. Plenty of reason to eliminate an inconvenient slave witness.”

  “Would she have fled to Gorgo’s murderer?” I asked.

  “She ran to someone she thought had reason to protect her,” Hermes said. “She may have been wrong about that.”

  “If so,” Cicero said, “she wouldn’t be the first to learn, too late, that a friend can be treacherous.”

  A short time after this, a messenger came from Norbanus with the list I had requested. The ice company had leased caves to a number of familiar names: Norbanus, Silva, Diogenes the scent merchant; even Gaeto himself was among them.

  “This doesn’t narrow the search down any,” I said disgustedly. “The only one missing is Diocles the priest. He isn’t rich enough to afford such an exotic property and probably doesn’t entertain enough to need one.”

  “You don’t suspect him of killing his own daughter, do you?” Cicero said, shocked.

  “Men have done it before,” I pointed out. “Even Agamemnon killed a daughter when it seemed necessary. Diocles was conveniently ‘away’ that night. He had the opportunity and he may have felt she had dishonored him with her multiple liaisons.”

  Cicero laughed drily. “Decius, I do not envy you. It’s hard enough to get a conviction when you prosecute one man you know to be guilty. But to sort out one or more guilty parties from such a crowd, that is a labor worthy of Hercules!”

  A little later Julia and the rest of my party arrived. She greeted Cicero courteously but coolly. Cicero was known for his opposition in the Senate to Caesar’s ambitions. Cicero took his leave and I brought Julia up to date on the day’s happenings.

  “I’ve brought Leto and Gaia. They can be the mourners at Charmian’s funeral.”

  “Are they up to it?” I asked.

  “Gaia is much recovered. Germans are tough. And Leto is greatly heartened.”

  “Heartened? Why?”

  “They were concerned that Diocles might seize them. They were not entirely sure that a praetor peregrinus would be competent to protect them. I told them that they were in my personal charge, that I am a Caesar, and that anyone who dared to interfere with them must answer personally to Julius Caesar.”

  “Ah, that should do the trick,” I said. A mere Metellus holding the second-highest office of the Republic was no bargain as a guardian, but Julius Caesar himself, that was another matter entirely.

  “And it was an excellent gesture, to give Charmian a funeral.”

  “Cicero thought so, although he considered it eccentric.”

  “Cicero is just a jumped-up snob. I, on the other hand, am a patrician. I appreciate the obligations of nobilitas.”

  “I know a bit about nobilitas as well,” I assured her. “My family, though plebeian, have been consulars for a good many centuries.”

  “My point exactly,” she said with impeccable obscurity.

  “On to more pertinent things,” I said. “What do you make of the circumstances I’ve been investigating? In particular, the odd combination of smells on that girl.”

  Julia shuddered. “Just doing such a thing seems obscene, but I understand why you did it. In a way, I almost wish I had been there. My sense of smell is much more sensitive than yours.”

  “Well, she’s still right over there at the Temple of—”

  “Don’t even suggest it!” she cried with an apotropaic hand sign to ward off evil. “The very thought fills me with revulsion. Now, if you are through making absurd suggestions—?”

  “Quite finished,” I assured her.

  “Well, then. Assuming you are correct about Zoroaster’s Rapture, and I am confident that you are, it occurs to me that the person with whom she sought refuge would have bathed her immediately. The scent may have been in the bath oil or in an unguent applied to her wounds. Like many of the costliest scents, that one is believed to have curative properties.”

  “Have you ever heard of a perfume that expensive being used on a slave?”

  “This is Baiae. The oil or unguent may have been all that was convenient when she arrived.”

  “That makes sense. What of the horse smell?”

  “Maybe she didn’t take refuge in a stable. Maybe she had been riding a horse.”

  “Is that possible? In her condition?”

  “We already know that she was incredibly resilient. Just surviving the beating in the first place, then escaping and making her way on foot to Baiae. What was one more ordeal to such a creature?”

  I began to ponder, seeking to place the facts we had into some sort of coherent sequence of events, some possible process that might account for all, or most of them. I call this making a model. Julia preferred to call it a paradigm, because she was a snooty patrician and preferred to use Greek.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s try this. The girl, with the collusion of Gaia, flees the temple. Somehow, hurt and bleeding, she makes her way to Baiae.”

  “She had to pass through a gate,” Julia said. “Probably the Cumae gate.”

  “Good point. I’ll look into it. Somebody may have seen her, although from what I’ve seen of the city guard, the Gauls could have marched in without waking them. So she got through the gate and went to the house of her friend protector, whatever you wish to call him. She is taken in, bathed, her wounds treated, given new clothes.”

  “Eventually,” Julia said, following my line of thought, “she becomes a liability. Just why, we don’t know. Perhaps she knew too much; perhaps he couldn’t afford to have her discovered in his house. He tells her he’s taking her somewhere else, somewhere safer.”

  “He mounts her on a horse,” I speculated. “He leads her on another. But they go only as far as the municipal laundry, where he does away with her, removes the incriminating clothes, and goes away, probably back into the town.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Julia said, “but it leaves too much unexplained. Why did he kill her? Why the ritualistic disposition of the body? And just who did the girl think had a reason to protect her?”

  “Almost anyone would be an improvement on Diocles,” I said. “As for the rest, maybe Cicero’s right and he’s just mad.”

  “Madness is a too-convenient explanation for seeming irrationality. It is a way to explain away that which we do not understand. More likely, the murderer had a very good reason for each of these apparently inexplicable things—we just don’t know what it might be.”

  “All too likely,” I said.

  Circe breezed in by dinnertime, with her cluster of personal servants and attendant luggage.

  “This is the most entertai
ning trip I’ve ever taken,” Circe cried as she rushed into the collonade. “Murders in strange places, pitched battles on the road! We’ll be the envy of all our friends.”

  “You’ll have an endless fund of stories to tell when everyone is back in Rome for the elections,” I agreed. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to provide you with this bonanza of gossip.”

  A litter came right into the impluvium and was set down next to our table. In it Antonia was mopping the heroic brow of young Marcus with a damp cloth. He looked blissfully content.

  “Marcus Caecilius Metellus!” I barked. “Get out of that litter and stand on your own feet! That little cut is on your arm and it hardly even bled, you malingering wretch. What am I going to do with you if we’re called off to war? In the legions, you’re expected to march forty miles a day if your legs are cut off at the knees!”

  He crawled from the litter, grumbling, “Aren’t you the grumpy one today.”

  “Can’t you let a wounded hero enjoy a little pampering?” Antonia scolded. “You used to be known as the laziest rake in Rome.”

  “I earned my reputation the hard way,” I told her. “Marcus is too young for such things. Decadence takes age and experience. He has neither.”

  Hermes came in from the town forum, where I’d sent him to collect gossip. “You’ll be pleased to learn,” he reported, “that there are calls to petition Rome for your recall, to send a band of local lawyers there to sue you for all manner of tyrannical and extraconstitutional practices, possibly to demand your execution.”

  “I see they’re not a bit embarrassed that bandits attacked a Roman praetor on their city’s doorstep,” I noted. “And how were these incendiary harangues received?”

  “Interestingly, the duumviri were the voices for moderation. They said that you are a meddlesome and high-handed senator, but that Roman justice must be allowed to take its course. Diocles says he’s the man most offended, but he concurred with his friends the duumviri. And all of them are clamoring for Gelon’s trial and speedy execution.”

  “Are they, now?” I fumed. “I never expected to have such trouble out of a pack of veritable provincials—”

  “They aren’t provincials, dear,” Julia corrected me, “even if they are aliens. They have full rights of citizenship.”

  At last the discrepancy that had been lurking at the back of my mind broke out into my conscious mind. “Citizenship!”

  “I agree it’s something we hand out too freely these days,” Julia said, “but why is it so significant now?”

  “What I should have thought of immediately! Gaeto was a resident alien. Who was his citizen partner?”

  “Whoever it was has been hiding,” Hermes said. “Legally, this partner would have been Gaeto’s patron. That means he was bound to help with the funeral preparations and attend the rites.”

  “And yet no local citizen appeared at the funeral,” I said.

  “It could be someone we’ve never heard of,” Marcus commented. “Just some Italian who rents out his patronage for the convenience of foreign businessmen. If he was away from town when Gaeto died, he couldn’t very well have attended the funeral.”

  “Nonetheless,” I said, “I want to know who this patron is. Marcus, tomorrow I want you to go to the municipal archive and see who is registered as Gaeto’s citizen patron.”

  “Why not just ask Gelon?” Julia suggested.

  “Good idea,” I concurred. “Where is Gelon, by the way?” Somehow I had lost track of the boy.

  “He’s at the villa,” Circe reported, “seeing to the funeral rites for his two guardsmen who were killed this morning. They were his tribesmen and he is obligated to perform the traditional ceremonies.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Does he wish us to attend the funeral?”

  “No. They were desert men, simple warriors. Since they died in the morning, they must be cremated by nightfall and their ashes returned to their families in Numidia.”

  “I wish I had the firewood concession in this district,” Marcus said. “With all the funerals lately, I’d be rich as Crassus.”

  11

  When Gelon arrived the next morning our interview was unproductive.

  “Patron?” he said.

  “Yes. Patron, partner, hospes, what have you. In order to practice business in Italy, he must have had one. You mean you were never introduced?” I was seated in the impluvium that morning. Since the town house was three stories high, this formed a veritable well, with the dining room, master bedroom, entrance hall, and so forth opening off the central collonade, the upper floors for storage and the household staff. It was bright and airy, with a beautiful fountain and many potted plants. But I was too frustrated to appreciate its charms.

  “Not to my knowledge. If he had one, I am sure it was purely as a matter of convenience. No one was ever introduced to me as such.”

  “You mean he never mentioned that he had a patron, one who no doubt demanded a percentage of his profits? This is a grave oversight in an otherwise exemplary man of business.”

  Gelon jerked his head sideways, the Numidian equivalent of a shrug. “Nonetheless, he never spoke of such a person to me.”

  Marcus awaited nearby. I caught his eye and nodded. Silently he left the house, bound for the municipal archive.

  Hermes’ report was likewise unproductive. “This town’s gates haven’t been guarded since the rebellion of Spartacus more than twenty years ago,” he said. “You should see the hinges. They’re solid with rust. They couldn’t get the gates shut if the Parthians invaded. Nobody keeps track of who enters or leaves the town at any hour. They don’t want to do anything that might slow down business.”

  “Somehow this doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Cato sounds like a wiser man by the minute.”

  An hour later Marcus returned, smiling so sunnily that I knew he had bad news to report. “The archivist was of no use at all.”

  “Gaeto’s registration has to be on record there,” I said. “Have you forgotten how to bribe a public slave? It’s a simple transaction involving money.”

  “Oh, he was happy to be of assistance,” Marcus protested. “You know how boring his job must be. It seems that the relevant documents are no longer there.”

  “Misplaced?” I suggested. In Rome, the archive slaves kept the filing system deliberately chaotic, so that only they could find anything. You had to bribe them generously if you wanted them to find anything for you.

  “No, the archive is in impeccable order. They use the Alexandrian system, with the ends of the scrolls painted in various colors by category, and each category arranged by alpha-beta-gamma, so that any document can be found in seconds. He walked right to where it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t among the registrations of alien merchants. And we quickly saw that it wasn’t misfiled among other documents. It’s just gone.”

  I kneaded the bridge of my long, Metellan nose. “My day is a shambles and it’s not even mid-morning yet. I suppose the slave has no idea who might have appropriated this document?”

  “He says he’s only been there a year. It might have been taken any time before that.”

  “Or,” Hermes said, “somebody might have gone there yesterday and bribed him to turn it over. He would hardly court a severe flogging by admitting it.”

  “Everyone here has something to hide,” I said, “and the favorite thing to conceal seems to be any connection to Gaeto the Numidian.”

  This left me with one possible source of information: the grieving widow. Just after mid-morning I was at her front door, accompanied by my lictors. The janitor admitted us and Jocasta received me in the atrium.

  “Official business today?” she asked.

  “It isn’t a court day,” I told her, “but I have some informal questions I’d like to ask.”

  “Then please come this way.” As I followed her within the house I admired the way she moved. She had a walk that was both graceful and provocative; its sway emphasized by her long, red hair,
which was tied back that morning in a tail that hung down as far as her very shapely buttocks. These and her long legs were clearly delineated by the gown she wore; one of those sheer, close-pleated Greek garments you see in Greek vase paintings, not as shameless as the Coan cloth dresses but extremely bold by stodgier Roman standards. In fact, she was in full Greek regalia that morning, with armlets banding her bare upper arms, her hairstyle and her cosmetics—everything as Greek as Homer.

  Instead of the impluvium, this time she led me to a small library that opened off the collonade. I scanned the titles in the honeycomb racks lining three walls. Her taste seemed to run to Greek playwrights and poets, no historians or philosophers. I had the impression that now, free of her husband, Jocasta was detaching herself from all things Numidian and Roman, reverting to her pure Greek heritage.

  We took seats at a small table, and a slave set watered wine and a plate of fruit between us. I took a sip and, the amenities now taken care of, got down to the matter at hand.

  “Jocasta, you’ve told me that when your husband was away from Italy, you handled all his business dealings.”

  “Yes, I told you that,” she agreed.

  “So you dealt with all his business associates?”

  “I believe I did.”

  “Then you must know Gaeto’s citizen partner.”

  She didn’t pause a beat. “Oh, yes. It was a man named Gratius Glabrio.” Just because she didn’t pause didn’t mean that she was not lying, of course.

  “Glabrio? Is he a citizen of Baiae? Of Cumae or Stabiae or Pompeii, by any chance?”

  “Oh, no. He lives in Verona. It will be days before he even knows that Gaeto is dead.”

  “Which would account for his absence from the funeral. Have you any idea why there is no record of the affiliation in the local archive? It is required by law.”

  “I’ve no idea at all. The partnership was established when my husband first set up business in Italy. That was several years before we were married. I’ve never met the man personally, although just last year I sent him his percentage of the year’s profits.”