Graveyard of the Hesperides

by Lindsey Davis

  We paced around the yard together, gazing down at each skeleton as we reassessed these secret burials. The layout, depth, consistency of them. The oddities. The disarticulated leg. The missing head.

  “The men are all of a type,” Faustus said at last. “Not tall, stocky build.”

  When I got down low to look closely at number four, with his severed lower leg, I spotted that his other, the one still attached, had a markedly deformed bone. “Look here, Tiberius. This man suffered an accident in his lifetime. His remaining leg had been badly crushed. He had a horrible fracture, as if something disastrously heavy fell on him—a millstone, a huge piece of masonry—bones were broken, a compound fracture that probably stuck through the flesh. He must have been lucky to survive. But it had all mended long before he died.”

  Tiberius took it further: “He would have had a very conspicuous, awkward gait. This man stood out. Everybody would have known him. I wonder … Albia, if we think Rufia’s head was taken away to prevent possible identification, did somebody also decide to remove the damaged leg for the same reason?”

  “They cut off the wrong one!” I exclaimed.

  Tiberius let himself grin, then grew more serious. “Could be understandable. We say they were well-organized, yet killing six people has unimaginable horrors. There must have been huge tension by the point of the burials. A mistake was made. Let’s face it, even surgeons have been known to carry out wrong amputations. Someone realized the error, but they couldn’t face hacking off a second leg, so they cursed, gave up, and tossed the wrong one back into the trench after the body, hoping for the best…”

  “Gruesome.” While I still crouched beside the limping man, I swung around to make comparisons with his next neighbor. “Same wear on their teeth. Same diet.”

  Tiberius followed my reasoning at once. “Same origin?”

  “Likely, though it’s nothing exceptional. Same habits, certainly. Gritty bread. Fruit. Acid wine followed by acidic belching.”

  “You make them sound lovable fellows!”

  “Who all drank in bars,” I reminded him, with a smile.

  “But you are not going so far as to identify their home village?” He was teasing me.

  “Could even be Rome. My point is, they all hung around together, leading the same lifestyle. In the same trade, I bet. And somehow they must have made a common enemy.”

  “But was it Old Thales?” Tiberius now frowned. “Did Thales himself, helped by his staff, attack these five men? If so, why?”

  “Had the five men somehow killed Rufia, so Thales ordered punishment killings?”

  “Surely we have no reason to believe Rufia meant that much to him?” I made a note to start asking people just what she did mean to the landlord, while Tiberius continued suggesting alternatives: “Or did a completely separate group have a set-to with these fellows, while Thales either kept out of the way or stood on the sidelines pleading with all parties to stop fighting in his bar?”

  I snorted mildly. “I don’t think he was that kind of landlord. But his bar was well-ordered. We know he had the no-nonsense Rufia to stop trouble—she sounds as if she would have kicked him into action if mayhem started.”

  “Ah, that kind of woman!” murmured Tiberius gently, as if to no one in particular.

  I shot him a cool glance. “If he didn’t himself arrange the attack, who could the antagonists be—people that Thales was scared to interfere with and too frightened of even to report their crime afterward?”

  “Soldiers?” suggested Tiberius.

  “Serving soldiers would have been missed. Absconding from the army is one crime that does get taken seriously. Especially if it happened in Rome, which is awash with units who could look for deserters.”

  “So the victims shared some trade, physical though not extremely hard by the look of their bones? Thales either was so scared of the killers, or so closely in league with them, he allowed them to fill his yard with corpses. He must have agreed to these burials. The killers must have relied on him keeping the graves secret, especially making sure afterward that nobody dug up anything accidentally.”

  “Now he’s dead, the killers have lost their security. Do you think they know he’s gone?”

  Tiberius lifted his shoulders, saying, “If they are anywhere local, they must find out now. They will hear that we have the bodies, so the authorities will be looking for perpetrators.”

  I chortled. “If they hear the vigiles came down here to reconnoiter, and danced off for a drink, they may not be too worried!”

  Tiberius returned a rueful look. “So will they realize that you and I are investigating instead?”

  I reckoned it was safer for us if they didn’t find out our track record. “Darling, I’d like to think I have a reputation as a dogged inquirer and you as a meticulous magistrate—but luckily on the Viminal we are neither of us known. Here you are merely the building contractor and I am—”

  “The contractor’s sparky wife!”

  He enjoyed being able to say that. Fortunately, I never felt diminished; he saw us as an equal partnership. In fact, he viewed me as essential. We two would, in every respect, jointly run our family business. The reason I loved Tiberius was that he had never envisaged anything else.

  *

  Our foreman, Larcius, came into the courtyard, quietly waiting until we were ready for him. He had been off and found a local undertaker to collect the bones. There were too many, and it was all too public, for us to simply shunt them into a big hole somewhere. Besides, no aedile—well, not this aedile—could be so impious.

  Tiberius gave instructions that the skeletons were to be kept for a time, in case our inquiries necessitated further inspection. Besides, we liked to be hopeful. We wanted to believe we could identify the dead, giving us a chance to allow their relatives to hold funerals.

  The undertaker’s cart came. One by one, the collection was lifted and taken away. It was now so late we saw off the bones by lamplight. Then, finally, the courtyard at the Garden of the Hesperides lay in darkness, deserted and empty.

  XX

  Tiberius and I went for a light supper. On our way down the street we passed the vigiles, still gathered at the Romulus. We did not join them.

  I noticed they were quiet enough. Those who were having drinks either leaned an arm on the bar counter in twos and threes, pecking at snacks and casually talking, or sat in loose groups at tables. Two had called for the draftboard.

  The other customers, there and at similar places we passed, were behaving in the same relaxed way. None seemed drunk. None were loud. Certainly no one was fighting.

  People were here because most had no cooking facilities at home. At least it cut down the number of house fires. But people need to eat. They come out to streetside eateries and either tuck in with company or take food home and get blamed by the family for forgetting to bring fish pickle. This is daily life in Rome.

  For some reason I found myself thinking about home—oops, Londinium. As I remembered, social behavior was much the same, except that British bars were just so cold, dark and grim that more people bought takeaway food—ooh, look, it’s exotic Roman turnips. They then rushed home to eat these treasures, thinking it was civilized. Also, more people than here cooked at home as their ancestors had done, brewing up nettle broths on tiny hearths; even with experience they were still capable of burning down their horrid huts. Londinium always had the smell of damp smoke. It could be a bath furnace. It could be manufacturing. It could be a bakery ablaze. Or it could just be Ungulandivericundius warming up some pigs’ trotters.

  Here, the bars with marble counters were where the majority routinely ate. It was easily warm enough to stand outside, indeed, too warm not to. Either I was mistaken about the ominous mood last night when I looked out from our room, or this was a quiet evening, or it was simply too early for trouble. Sometimes street violence flares in waves then for no obvious reason dies down. Maybe this was a lull.

  Now I began thinking about the
night Rufia disappeared and those men were murdered. It could have coincided with a big holiday. There were many in the calendar, as my sisters had found when choosing my wedding day. A religious parade, the gladiatorial games, theater. Oh, all right, everyone ignores drama. So say it was religion or the arena, the staples of Roman entertainment. Harder drinking, wilder festivity. But nobody so far had mentioned a festival in connection with Rufia. If the barmaid had vanished on such a particular night, it would have lingered in the memory, surely? Artemisia and Orchivia had said it was the year the Amphitheater was consecrated, but the games held for that went on for over a hundred days, which did not really help me.

  I talked about this with Tiberius while we were still strolling, before we identified a caupona we liked the look of. In a strange area it’s always tricky. We never went into anywhere that had no visible customers, nor anywhere that was throbbing. This one had a few people but some empty places at tables inside. It turned out to be run by a woman. I have no reason to think that was significant—though I found it pleasing.

  She was neat and capable. Her helper was a boy of about twelve, presumably her son. She served a decent house red, with a jug of cold water and honey too, then offered us a stew of hot lentils with celery. So she even obeyed the food laws that stipulated no meat. Tiberius Manlius complimented her on that, though did not say he was a magistrate.

  He muttered to me that it was so well-run, he could not imagine this caupona could ever be a haven for political conspiracy (the daft idea was that by only serving pulses, plotters against the government would be discouraged from gathering to eat out). I smiled, privately thinking that the neat domina and her apparently law-abiding place would provide the perfect cover for fomenting threats against the Emperor. No one would suspect her.

  I said nothing. I had yet to ascertain whether the man I was marrying would approve if Domitian were assassinated.

  I stopped thinking about that. Even to dream of removing our tyrant was dangerous. I looked around at the other customers nervously. Domitian had spies who could sniff out your private thoughts, even in a haze of lentil steam.

  *

  We ate a quiet meal. As we paid, I asked the hostess whether she knew anything about the Hesperides. She claimed not to. Maybe it was too far along the street. Certainly, she was reluctant to gossip.

  This was a different kind of establishment. No fornication rooms upstairs. The woman and her son probably lived there, but they kept their own space private. Her clientele were local couples, families she had known for years, passing workers who bucked the trend by wanting breakfast and dinner somewhere congenial and clean.

  We walked back to our hired room. When we passed the Romulus, the vigiles had left. Now that it was dark, they would need to sign on for their shift, patrolling the streets to look for fires and wrongdoers—or at least householders they could fine for not keeping their fire buckets brimful.

  Artemisia and Orchivia had gone from the Romulus too; we saw them talking to other men down at the Four Limpets. They were sitting with their potential clients, pretending to listen admiringly to the conversation. A lanky man in his fifties was actually serving food and drink, with Nipius and Natalis vaguely hovering indoors. In any case, I remembered that the women’s current nominal employment was supposed to be at the Brown Toad.

  Their places of work seemed curiously fluid. It hardly fitted their official designation as “waitresses.” People always spoke of Rufia as routinely attached to the Hesperides. Was she an especially loyal kind of barmaid, or did Old Thales keep a tight grip on his staff? Otherwise, were Artemisia and Orchivia specifically whores and exempt from carrying trays?

  While the Dardanians were with customers, I would not interrupt them to ask. I wanted my bed, with my lover Tiberius, who had already indulged in a very different kind of wooing today.

  27 August

  Six days before the Kalends of September (a.d. VI Kal. Sept.)

  Four days before the wedding of Tiberius Manlius Faustus and Flavia Albia

  XXI

  Next morning, Tiberius first started his men back at their renovation at the Hesperides; later he intended going to Lesser Laurel Street. I joked that builders always keep two jobs on the go, so whenever you want them, they can say they are over at the other one.

  “Oh yes, I’ll be getting drunk in a bar all day!” replied Tiberius affably. I had never seen him really drunk, though the night he went out with my father to gain approval for our future together was supposed to have had epic qualities.

  “You won’t want lunch with me then.” I must have sounded disappointed. It was obvious he would have no time to come back; he had to see a painter about color shades for doors, apparently. For him, too, our not having lunch together was a matter for regret. “This had better be for the front doors, nothing less!” I grumbled.

  “Our public face,” he conceded. “Vital.”

  “Choose cream and dark red.”

  “Yes, that’s a classic look and it’s what I’ve gone for. The base must be not too light, but warm with the sun on it, the fields and features picked out for contrast. But I have to match the cream correctly, and it must be the right red.”

  Olympus. Ought I to have known him longer before tying myself to this pedant? Would his niggling drive me mad?

  He could see what I thought. Wickedly, he said no more. The whole conversation might be a tease. He would always keep me on the hop; I would never be bored. Oh, I loved this man.

  *

  I myself was planning to visit the landlord, Liberalis. I wanted to challenge him about the new death count. However, before I could set off to his untidy home, he turned up of his own accord. “I heard the news. How appalling, how terrible!” The man was flapping to a degree that roused my interest. Was he merely perturbed to have other corpses found in his bar, or was there more to it?

  He peered anxiously around the courtyard as if he expected it still to be an ossuary. Perhaps he wanted to frighten himself with something gruesome. He may not have known that it can be traumatic if you have to look at murder victims in a location that’s very familiar to you. It would be better not to.

  Faustus, who was still here at that point, explained that the bones had been taken away last night, then he suggested, po-faced, that as owner of the premises Julius Liberalis must be responsible for paying for their funerals. From an aedile this sounded credible; Liberalis looked horrified. I knew public funds would probably be found; Tiberius would rather Liberalis kept his cash to pay the renovation account.

  While the workmen started to reinstate the ground, I took Liberalis over to the Romulus for a private talk about our discoveries. The bar opposite was empty. The morning shift seemed startled to find customers, but the atmosphere was perfectly pleasant. They even brought us an olive saucer. I personally view four olives between two as miserly, but they saw it as a wildly hospitable gesture.

  At this hour the Romulus was seemingly a quiet haven of refreshments. A mother could have stopped there for a drink of water with two toddlers and never realized she had chosen a place that served as a brothel at night.

  *

  “Publius Julius Liberalis!” I gave him a long thoughtful gaze. He started to speak but I carried on in a somber tone, implying that he was in trouble. “Six corpses—five males and a female—have been found buried on your premises. What do you have to say about that?”

  “I know nothing about it! This has nothing to do with me!”

  “Well I warn you, you may have to prove your innocence to a very senior magistrate. I’m sure you heard, the vigiles came down to view the crime scene. They went away to consult their superiors, but you know how they operate. They will look for somebody to blame, and as the owner now, you fit their suspect profile.”

  Liberalis exhibited a mix of bafflement and self-defense. It can characterize the genuinely innocent—or else it’s how the guilty try to bluff. “Surely I cannot be held responsible for things that happened before I owned the
bar?” That may have seemed common sense to him, but the vigiles were not renowned for logical thinking.

  I smiled, acting more sympathetic. I had been to Egypt. I could shed crocodile tears. “Yes, I am so sorry they are crude. It makes life awful for the innocent. You know what they do, of course…” He had no idea. I would enjoy telling him. “They pinpoint someone they can say looks likely to have done it, then they beat him up until he confesses.”

  “What if he hasn’t done it?” gasped Liberalis. “He’s not going to confess then, is he?”

  “Oh he is! They use a torturer, you know.”

  He had not known. He was so naïve, definitely a mother’s boy. I wondered what his mother had been like. Sometimes those who mollycoddle are as dim as their offspring; other times they are needle-sharp. That can especially apply when an inheritance is looming. Mothers of unworldly only sons so often know how to get their hands on the legacy. “You are not serious!” he quavered.

  “Afraid so. If someone says he is not guilty, the vigiles only take more time to make him own up. His pain lasts longer. They like that.” I smiled again, in fact I giggled. “Listen to me! I sound as if I’ve spent my life in a station house … Well, an old uncle of mine was an inquiry chief for many years. I grew up with this kind of thing. I don’t want to shock you, but it taught me a lot, Liberalis. Lucius Petronius is a lovely man in a family situation, but dear gods, I would never have wanted to meet him at work! In fact, one of the officers who came to look at your bar is his replacement, Titus Morellus. Definitely woven on the same loom. He’s Fourth Cohort, but very thick with the Third over this. It’s a multi-cohort initiative now, in view of the number of corpses and the gravity of the case.”

  Oh come, Flavia Albia. That’s a fine way to describe the multi-cohort drinking bout for which the Third and Fourth found occasion yesterday. I doubted that those two would ever be back. It would not even be “case closed” because I knew neither of them even intended for a file to be opened.