The Venus Throw rsr-4

by Steven Saylor

  "You were about to say something?"

  "This is the room." Coponius pushed opened a door and gestured for me to enter.

  It was a small room, sparsely furnished with a sleeping couch, a chair, and a couple of small tables. A carpet covered the floor. Metal hooks were mounted in the walls for hanging clothing and lamps.

  "How did the assassins get in?" I said.

  "Through that window, by the couch. The shutters were drawn and latched, I'm sure. Dio would have seen to that, if only to shut out the cold. The latch has been repaired, but you can still see where the wood was splintered when the shutters were forced open."

  "Was the old latch made of bronze, like this one?"

  "This is the very same latch, hammered straight by a smith and reattached in a different place."

  "This seems to be a rather strong latch. I should think that forcing it from the outside would have made some noise."

  "I suppose."

  "A considerable noise."

  "It couldn't have been that loud-"

  "Perhaps not a loud enough noise to awaken you in the next room, or even to be heard by your watchman at the front door, but surely loud enough for Dio to hear if he was lying on this couch."

  "You might think so, yes. But as I told you, no one heard Dio cry out. I suppose he was a very sound sleeper. Or perhaps the breaking of the latch didn't make as much noise as you seem to think."

  "We could argue the point forever," I said. "Or shall we make an empirical test?"

  "Do you mean-?"

  "If you'll let me."

  Coponius shrugged.

  "Go on."

  I unlatched the window and stepped through it, into the courtyard beyond, which was surrounded by a high wall. Inside the room, Coponius latched the shutters. I pushed on them, testing their strength, and realized it would take a considerable effort to force them open. I looked around and spotted a loose stone. Clutching it in my fist, I struck a hard blow against the shutters. With a sound of splintering wood the shutters flew open and the metal latch went flying across the room and landed on the carpet.

  I climbed through the window. "Tell me, was the broken latch found across the room like that, lying on the floor?"

  "Why, yes. I'm sure of it. I remember, because when I came into this room I stepped on the latch and cut my bare foot."

  "Then we can assume that the shutters were forced open with at least as much force on that night, and must have made as much noise. I would say that was noisy enough to wake anyone in this room."

  "Yes," Coponius agreed, fretfully tapping his forefinger against his

  lips.

  "And yet, Dio didn't cry out."

  "Perhaps he was awakened from a deep sleep, unable to comprehend. Or perhaps he comprehended only too well and was paralyzed with fright."

  "Perhaps. Was his throat cut?"

  "No. All the wounds were in his chest."

  "How many wounds?"

  "I'm not sure, exactly. Quite a few."

  "There must have been a great deal of blood."

  "Some blood, yes."

  "A struggling man, stabbed repeatedly in the chest-the room must have been covered with blood."

  Coponius wrinkled his brow. "When we came in the room, it was very dark, of course. The slaves held lamps. Shadows swung all about. I remember seeing blood-I don't know how much. Does it matter?"

  "Probably not. You don't still have the sleeping tunic Dio was wearing, or the cushions he was sleeping on?"

  "Of course not. They were burned."

  I looked around the room, imagining Dio on the couch, silent, terrified, being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Somehow the image did not make sense. "Your watchman finally did hear something, and came to investigate."

  "Yes."

  "Would you let me speak to him?"

  "Of course." Coponius summoned the slave, a sturdy young Greek named Philo, who looked keen enough. I asked him exactly what he had heard on the night that Dio died.

  "A noise, coming from this room."

  "What kind of noise?"

  "A banging kind of noise."

  "Not a scream, or a moan?"

  "No."

  "Splintering wood, cracked hinges?"

  "No, more like something being knocked onto the floor."

  "When we came in," Coponius interjected, "everything was in disarray. The tables were upended, the chair on its side. The scrolls Dio kept by his bedside were scattered about."

  "When you heard the banging noise," I said to Philo, "how quickly did you come?"

  "Right away. I heard more noises while I was running down the hallway."

  "How did you know where the noises were coming from?" "As I got closer I could tell that they were coming from inside this room."

  "So you tried to open the door?" The slave hesitated. "Not right away."

  "Because you were frightened?"

  "No… "

  "No? I would have been. It takes nerve to open a door with strange sounds coming from the other side, especially in the middle of the night."

  "I wasn't scared. Excited in a way, my heart beating fast, but not scared."

  "Then why didn't you try to open the door, Philo?" "I called out Dio's name instead." "Did he answer?"

  "No. There was another banging noise." "Then you tried the door?" "Not right away… " "What were you waiting for?" "For them to finish!" Philo said, exasperated.

  "To finish killing Dio?"

  "Of course not! For Dio to finish his business, if that's what he was up to." The slave made a face and looked away. "The master knows what I mean."

  I looked at Coponius, who looked back at me blandly and pursed his lips. "Philo means that such noises could have meant something besides… danger."

  "Danger to Dio, anyway," said Philo under his breath.

  "That's enough, Philo," said Coponius sharply. "Get back to what-ever you were doing."

  The slave left us. I turned to Coponius. "These noises-"

  He sighed. "Shortly after Dio came to stay here, he-how shall I say this? — he appropriated one of my slaves for his own use."

  I nodded. "The last slave he owned had died tasting his food."

  "That's not what I mean." Coponius shook his head. "He was a troubled man, in great distress. If ever a man needed something to take his mind off his problems, it was Dio. There was a young serving girl who caught his eye. He decided to make use of her. For his pleasure. He used her almost every night."

  "With your permission?"

  "I was never asked, actually. It was presumptuous of Dio to simply take what he wanted, to be sure, but under the circumstances I decided I would be a selfish host if I withheld the use of a slave from a guest, especially since I had no plans to use the girl myself, at least not in that way."

  "I see. Then Philo thought he might simply be hearing the sounds of Dio using the girl." "Exactly."

  "All the bumping and thumping-surely you heard it, too."

  "Eventually it woke me. At first, I made the same assumption that Philo made. 'At it again!' I thought. I shut my eyes and tried to get back to sleep."

  "Did Dio always make so much noise?" "Not always."

  "What on earth would he do to the girl?"

  "I hardly see how that's any of your business, Gordianus. I've been

  indiscreet in telling you as much as I have. May Dio's shade forgive me. I begin to grow tired of this interview-"

  "But eventually Philo realized that something was terribly wrong," I said, pressing on.

  "Yes. When the bumps and knocks stopped, things got a bit too quiet. He called out Dio's name, louder and louder-I could hear him calling, so Dio should have been able to. I could also hear him rattling Dio's door, which was locked, of course. I got up then and told Philo to fetch some others. They brought torches and together managed to break down the door. Inside we found the shutters open, the room a mess… and Dio dead on his couch."

  "And the slave girl?"

  "She wasn't i
n the room at all, as it turned out. She was in the slaves' sleeping quarters."

  I walked to the window and peered out. "How did the assassins get onto the terrace in the first place? It seems to be surrounded by a high wall."

  "They must have scaled it. They couldn't have come in the front because of Philo, and the side walls were set flush against the houses on either side. The wall enclosing the little courtyard out back runs along a little alley. There's a gate in the wall, but it was securely locked. They had to have climbed over from the alley."

  I nodded. "It's a high wall-too high for a man to climb without help, I should think."

  "Do you want to test that as well?" Coponius raised an eyebrow.

  "No. I think we can assume that there were at least two assassins, to help each other over the wall. Did your neighbors see anything?"

  "None of my neighbors can see into the courtyard behind the house. The alley is practically unused. I doubt that anyone could have seen anything, unless they happened to be standing on a rooftop, which would have been unlikely on a chilly Januarius night. Besides, if anyone had seen something, I'd have been told. I'm on good terms with my neighbors. They were all quite upset by the murder."

  I walked about the room, idly tapping my forefinger against the metal hooks set into the walls. "So the slave girl wasn't with Dio when the murder occurred?"

  "As I told you, she was asleep in the slave quarters."

  "Could I talk to her?"

  Coponius shook his head. "Not possible."

  "Why not?"

  "I sold her to a slave dealer here in the city."

  "Was there something wrong with her?

  Coponius hesitated. "After the use Dio made of her, she was no longer suitable to serve in my house."

  "You don't mean she was crippled?

  "Of course not. Oh, a few strap marks and bruises, perhaps, but nothing that wouldn't fade with time. Possibly a scar or two, but nothing that would show unless she was naked. Nevertheless, she was damaged property. It simply wouldn't do to keep her in the household; much better to pass her on. I'm sure some other master will find her suitable-perhaps even find her value enhanced by the instruction Dio gave her." He shrugged. "I never intended for the girl to become a pleasure slave, but it must have been the will of the Fates."

  "Or of Dio." My mouth was dry.

  "The subject is distasteful to me," said Coponius. "Indeed, this whole conversation has begun to tire me. I should think that you've already found out more than you need to know."

  "More than I intended to, anyway."

  "Then perhaps you should be going. Here, I'll summon a slave to show you out." He clapped his hands.

  The slave who came running was Philo. Coponius didn't notice. Having dismissed me, his mood abruptly darkened. He didn't even bid me farewell as he walked to the window and gazed out at the sunny courtyard, idly fingering the newly broken latch with one hand.

  In the foyer I put my hand on Philo's shoulder and drew him aside. "The slave girl we were talking about-what's her name?"

  "Zotica. But she's not here anymore."

  "I know. Your master sold her to a dealer. You wouldn't know which dealer, would you?"

  The slave hesitated, scrutinizing me. He peered up the hallway and bit his lip. "The master sold her to a man down on the street of the Scythemakers," he finally said. "I don't know his name."

  I nodded. "Let me make sure I understand: when you broke into his room and found him dead, Dio was alone. Zotica wasn't with him."

  "That's right."

  "What about earlier that night?"

  He looked at me and then peered up the hallway again. "Oh, all right, why not tell you? She's gone now, anyway, the poor child. Yes, Zotica was with Dio earlier that night. He came in wearing that ridiculous outfit, dressed up in a stola, if you can believe it, and in a foul mood, even fouler than usual. He snapped his fingers at Zotica and told her to come tend to him in his room. 'To help him take off his makeup,' quipped one of the other serving girls. 'No, just to help him take off!" said one of the others. They were always mean to Zotica because she was the youngest, and the prettiest, but I think they were also glad that Dio had settled on using her instead of them."

  "So Dio went to his room and took the girl with him."

  "Yes, but later he must have sent her away."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "The rest of the household had gone to bed. I was standing watch at the front door. I heard something in the hallway and went to have a look. It was Zotica walking up the hall, away from Dio's room. She was naked, clutching her gown and hiding her face in her hands, sobbing."

  "Clutching her gown? Why wasn't she wearing it?"

  "Why do you think? I figured the old man had ripped it off of her and torn it too badly to wear. I asked her what was wrong, but she just shook her head and ran toward the slave quarters. I figured he'd finished with her early, and been even rougher than usual."

  "How long was this before the noise you heard later, when the assassins came?"

  "Oh, quite a while before."

  "But when you heard those noises and went to investigate, you told me you thought they might have been the sounds of Dio and Zotica… "

  He shrugged. "I thought she might have slipped back into his room. But she hadn't. When we were breaking down the door to Dio's room, Zotica was off in the slave quarters with the other girls. There's no question about that. She woke some of the slaves with her weeping when she came in, then kept them awake with her sobbing, even when they threatened to beat her. There's no doubt that she was with the other slaves when Dio was stabbed."

  "Still, I should dearly like to have a talk with her. Tell me, when you broke into the room, what exactly did you see?"

  Philo was thoughtful. "Chair and tables overturned. Window shutters open. Dio on the couch, dead."

  "How did you know he was dead?"

  "The look on his face!" Philo turned pale, remembering. "Such a look-his eyes and mouth wide open with a look of pure horror, as if he'd seen the face of Cerberus himself."

  "Pure horror-and yet you never heard him cry out?"

  "Never."

  "But to have such a look on his face, he must have known he was under attack, he must have felt the blows. Why did he not scream?" "I don't know. I only know I never heard him." "Did you see the wounds?"

  "Very clearly. I helped undress him later, when the men from the necropolis came to take him away."

  "How many times was he stabbed?"

  "Six or seven times, I think. Maybe more. All in the chest, close together."

  "How close?"

  He held up his palms side by side. "Two hands could have covered the wounds."

  "But surely he thrashed about. A frightened man startled from sleep, horrified. He's stabbed the first time-surely he cries out. Surely he thrashes and twists to avoid the next blow."

  "Perhaps his arms were held down and his mouth was covered."

  "How many men would that take?"

  "The room was a mess. Perhaps there was a whole gang of them milling around in there."

  "Perhaps. I suppose there was blood everywhere, on the walls and carpet?"

  Philo wrinkled his brow. "Not really."

  "And the sleeping tunic he wore-that must have been soaked with blood."

  "Around the wounds, yes."

  "But not-"

  "Philo! I thought you were showing Gordianus to the door." Coponius appeared at the far end of the hall. He crossed his arms. "Yes, Master!"

  "There was something I forgot to ask him," I said. "Just a small detail-"

  "Farewell, Gordianus."

  I took a deep breath. "Farewell, Titus Coponius."

  Belbo was waiting for me outside the front door, sitting in a patch of warm sunshine. Together we took a silent walk through the streets of the Palatine, breathing in the smells of midday cooking, listening to the noises that echoed up from the Forum. I walked merely to walk, with no particular goal. I needed to t
hink.

  I was beginning to discover a side to Dio that I had never guessed at. This disturbed me. I had also begun to piece together the sequence of his final days and hours. The gory drama of his death seemed forthright enough; it only remained to determine who had broken into his room that fateful night. Yet I could not put aside a nagging feeling that some-thing was very, very wrong.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The girl is important.

  I'm not sure how, but I can't help thinking so." "What girl?" said Eco. "The slave girl, Zotica.

  The one Dio was…"

  "Important?" said Eco. "But how? If she'd been in the room when the killers broke in, she'd be a witness, though I doubt they would have left her alive. Unless of course she was in on their plan, in which case they'd have had no need to break in the shutters-she'd have let them in.

  But then they'd have broken the shutters and killed her anyway, to keep her from talking… but all this takes away from what we know, which is that the girl was not in the room when Dio was killed." "Still…"

  I had finally tired of walking and thinking and had gone home for something to eat, to find that Eco and his family had dropped by. While the women and children visited in the garden at the heart of the house, Eco and I sat in the little atrium just off the foyer, basking in a narrow shaft of warm sunlight. I told him all I had learned that morning from my visits to Lucceius and Coponius.

  "It's too bad that Cicero's entered the picture," said Eco. He shook his head. "Imagine, Cicero taking on Marcus Caelius's defense, after the bad blood between them!"

  "There's a lot at stake," I said. "The charges are serious-serious enough to send even a brash fellow like Caelius running back to his old teacher. I'm sure Cicero made him promise to be a good boy from now on and always support the status quo. It must have been quite a coup for Cicero, bringing the errant sheep back into the fold."

  "And, provided Cicero gets him off the hook, Caelius will get a chance to betray his old mentor all over again," observed Eco.

  I laughed. "Exactly. I suppose the two of them deserve each other."

  "Still, too bad it's Cicero for the defense. Even if you do find compelling evidence against Caelius — "