All Roads Lead to Murder

by Albert A. Bell

  “You know I’ll help you in any way I can,” Luke said.

  “It may involve a confrontation with Anyte and her acolytes.”

  After a moment of silence Timothy said morosely, “I’ll go with you.” I think I felt Luke kicking him under the table.

  “Thanks. Finish your lunch. I’ll ask Androcles to get us some riding gear for our horses.”

  I found the innkeeper coming out of the steaming kitchen. “It’s riding gear you’re wanting?” he said with a grin. “Going after that bit of blond stuff, are you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The blond slave girl, my lord. The one you was hiding in Apelles’ house. The one that’s gone missing again. Aren’t you going after her?”

  “How did you hear about that?” I demanded.

  He wasn’t the least afraid of me. Instead he was proud of his clever ears. “One of my slaves was talkin’ to a friend of hers down the street who knows one of Apelles’ girls. And there was that witchy sign on the door, I hear.”

  “Damn!” I said. “Who else knows?”

  “You mean, who doesn’t know, my lord. By now the whole town has news of it.”

  He didn’t have to remind me. Our society is cursed with one of the most efficient means of communication ever devised. If you want information made public, just tell it to a slave and order him or her to keep it secret. It’ll be all over town within the hour. And, as Herodotus said about the Persian king’s messengers, ‘Neither heat nor snow nor gloom of night’ could stop them. I was reasonably certain this was the news that had been whispered into Marcellus’ ear during the games. The disappointment he registered on his face gave me some hope that his plans had been thwarted as abruptly as mine.

  “Well, in any case,” I said, “I want gear for three horses.” Androcles ordered one of his servants to bring my animals out.

  The servant was assisting us onto the horses when we began to hear a distant murmur, a noise rumbling through the streets like stones rolling down a hill. First it became distinct as a drumbeat, then as a human noise but still indecipherable. Finally someone turned a corner and the words fell intelligibly on our ears: “Make way for the governor! Make way for Lucius Mestrius Florus!”

  The governor was here already? How could the message have gotten to him and he made the return trip so rapidly? I hadn’t expected him until tomorrow evening at the earliest, if the messenger hadn’t been delayed and the governor had set out immediately. Now here he was and we would have to postpone our search for Chryseis.

  * * * *

  An impressive entourage now marched into view. The governors of senatorial provinces, such as Asia, have only a handful of troops under their command, usually no more than a century or two. Only in frontier provinces which face the threat of attack, such as Syria, do we keep significant forces, and those under the command of men personally loyal to the emperor. Florus appeared to have brought about thirty of his soldiers with him, enough to make an impression but not so many as to frighten the good citizens of Smyrna. A burly centurion—I’m not sure there is any other kind—barked out orders and brought the column to a halt in front of our inn. Florus himself, I assumed, was being carried in a closed litter, trailed by a pack of a dozen or so slaves. Half of his soldiers marched in front of him and the rest brought up the rear. The messenger whom Androcles had sent trailed the party.

  The litter-bearers set their burden down and the curtains parted as a small man of about fifty stepped out. Florus had been consul about a decade ago, when I was still a boy. I knew nothing of him. At first glance he appeared a man one could like, with a pleasant round countenance with eyes dark and inquisitive, but nothing grim. He had light-colored hair, with a bald spot on his crown. There was an awkward moment of silence as he dusted himself off. Since no one was prepared to offer a formal welcome, I stepped forward and addressed him in Latin.

  “Excellency, welcome. I am Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus. It was my message that requested your presence here. This is the physician Luke and Timothy of Ephesus.” By not introducing Damon I identified him as a slave and of no concern to Florus.

  The governor’s face brightened as I said my name. “Yes, Gaius Pliny! What a delight to meet the son of the illustrious Pliny. His death was such a tragedy.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you. We’re surprised to see you so soon. I thought it would be tomorrow before you could get here from Pergamum.”

  “From Pergamum it would have been,” Florus said. “But your messenger ran into my party up the road in Cyme. I’m on my first circuit to hear judicial cases around the province.”

  I nodded. Making the rounds to hear court cases in various towns in the province was perhaps the governor’s most important task. A conscientious governor would spend most of his term away from his residence in the capital city. A slacker would spend his time enjoying whatever luxuries the province had to offer. The fact that Florus was already at work, less than a month after his arrival, boded well for our investigation.

  He gave orders for his slaves to find a place to store his litter and for the soldiers to set up a camp on the outskirts of the city. Their supply wagons had not entered the gates but were already scouting for a spot to bivouac. As the noise of the soldiers’ marching faded, Florus looked relieved.

  “Those fellows frighten me,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I think I’m more their prisoner than their commander. But enough of that!” He clapped his hands together. “I can’t tell you what an honor it is to meet you, young man. I have so many questions about your father’s work. He spurred my interest in a variety of topics. I’ve done some scientific writing of my own, as you may know.”

  If he had done anything worth reading, my uncle would have mentioned his name to me. “No, sir, I wasn’t aware of that. But we have a serious situation on our hands here. That’s why I sent for you. And, if I may say so, I expected you to bring someone with you to help in the investigation.”

  “Oh, I left most of my staff in Cyme. They can deal with the cases that were being brought to us. Who stole whose goat, where a sewer line should be put—it’s all so exasperating.” He fluttered his eyes and put a hand to his forehead.

  I was beginning to revise my initial impression of the man. If I didn’t know him, I recognized his type. He was a scholarly man, a dilettante, somewhat timid, and not very interested in dealing with a really tough problem. Many Roman aristocrats affect this pose because they want to avoid even the appearance of having political ambitions that might draw the ire of the emperor. Even my uncle took refuge in that sort of thing in Nero’s last years. The only book he wrote then was an eight-volume work on grammatical problems. Now Rome has developed a whole class of men who dally in scientific explorations of the sort my uncle loved.

  “Excellency, this is quite a bit more complicated than stolen goats and sewer lines. As I told you in my note, a Roman citizen, Lucius Manilius Cornutus, a man whose father and grandfather held the consulship, has been murdered.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s horrible.” He shook his head. “Just horrible. And I want you to tell me all about it as soon as I’ve had a bath and something to eat. I’m much too tired right now to consider such a weighty matter. Is there a good bathhouse near here?”

  “Yes, excellency, just a block down that way.” I pointed over my shoulder.

  “Good. Would you accompany me, please?”

  A bath was the last thing I wanted right now. I had delayed searching for Chryseis longer than I should have already. While I was turning wrinkly in the caldarium Anyte and her bunch could be moving Chryseis farther and farther away from Smyrna, and farther away from the likelihood that I would ever find her. And Marcellus could be sending his minions out to look for her. But I had no choice. I had presumed to take charge because the governor wasn’t here. Now the governor was here, so I was no longer giving the orders.

  While we made our way through the frigidarium and tepidarium I outlined what had happened to Cornutus, bu
t did not mention my theory that he’d been poisoned before he was eviscerated. Without being able to show Florus the evidence of the corpse itself, I had no proof of that accusation. I also didn’t mention Chryseis’ fall and disappearance.

  “This doctor,” Florus said as I concluded my report as we soaked in the pool, “this Luke. What do you know about him?”

  I couldn’t weigh my response too carefully or too long. Florus was probably good at reading pauses. “He seems quite competent.”

  “Do you remember what your uncle said about physicians in the Natural History?”

  “Well, sir, he said quite a bit about them. He took great interest in their work. Is there one passage in particular you have in mind?”

  “Yes. In one of the later volumes, I believe, he says, ‘Only a physician can commit murder with complete impunity.’ Do you think he might have had this man Luke in mind?”

  I was so stunned to be reminded of my uncle’s dictum that I think my mouth must have opened and closed a couple of times, like a fish taken out of water.

  “No, excellency, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Luke is anything but a competent and compassionate doctor.” Leaving aside, I thought, the fact that he’s a member of a dubious cult, a follower of a crucified criminal.

  “At any rate, we ought to look at him carefully,” Florus said before he submerged himself.

  Florus proved to be one of those people who spends a couple of hours in the baths, relishing the experience with all his senses. Unless I’ve had a particularly difficult day, I view a bath more pragmatically. A bit of a soak to relax, a good scrub, and I’m done. Florus wanted a massage, during the course of which he fell asleep, and he couldn’t resist trying some of the items the food sellers were hawking. A sticky pastry made with grape leaves and dates sent him into ecstasies. It nauseated me.

  We were still in the bathhouse when Marcellus and Tacitus came in, a sure signal that Apelles’ funeral games were over. It disturbed me to see my friend chatting amicably with Marcellus. Nonetheless, I introduced Florus to the two of them.

  “I’ve told his excellency how Cornutus was butchered,” I said, hoping Tacitus would pick up on the hint and not say anything about the poisoning and trying to make Marcellus think I suspected nothing. Marcellus smirked.

  “Yes,” Tacitus said, lowering himself into the pool. “It was a ghastly sight. I hope I never see the like again.”

  I rolled my eyes. This from a man who’d just spent most of the day watching people being hacked up for the crowd’s amusement.

  Marcellus, still sitting on the edge of the pool with his towel wrapped around him, began fawning over Florus in a way that would have made his teacher Regulus proud. His performance almost completed the job that the grape leaf pastry had begun in my stomach. I hoped I wouldn’t vomit in the pool.

  “It’s a relief to finally have a legal authority on the scene,” he said.

  Florus made a mild defense of me. “It sounds as though Gaius Pliny has kept things in order. No one has been allowed to leave; Cornutus’ father has been notified; the victim received a proper funeral. That was your responsibility, I understand.”

  Marcellus lowered his eyes, as though embarrassed to be singled out for praise. “Yes, excellency. I was happy to make some small contribution. Now that you’re here, I hope to be able to continue my travels, perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

  Florus surprised me. “That won’t be possible. I think Pliny was correct to hold everyone here until we’ve gotten some questions answered. I will issue the same order. I don’t want anyone leaving town until further notice.”

  The bath wasn’t the only thing steaming now, but Marcellus didn’t protest. Instead he launched a more direct attack on me.

  “It is unfortunate, excellency, that two slaves of the murdered man have gone missing under Gaius Pliny’s regime. It’s quite likely one of them killed him.”

  Florus looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You hadn’t mentioned that.”

  “I was coming to it, excellency,” I lied. “It’s by no means clear to me that either of these women had anything to do with Cornutus’ death. They were both locked up when it happened.”

  Marcellus dropped into the water so he could put his physical presence behind his attack. “But we don’t know what they know because Pliny refused to torture Cornutus’ slaves to get information out of them.”

  Florus looked at me with disappointment. “Is this true? You refused to have the slaves tortured?”

  “Yes, excellency. I saw no point in it. All of Cornutus’ slaves were locked up for the night when he went to bed. None of them could have had anything to do with his death.” An inspiration hit. “In fact, our friend Marcellus here may have been the last person to see Cornutus alive.”

  Before Marcellus could do more than splutter, Florus held up his hands. “I don’t intend to conduct this inquest in the bath. I’ll start my soldiers searching for these women in the morning and will convene a formal inquiry at the second hour. Pliny, I want to see the notes you made about the condition of Cornutus’ body.”

  “I have them, sir,” Tacitus said. “I’ll get them sorted out tonight.”

  “Luke, the physician,” I added, “also examined Cornutus’ body and can corroborate my own findings.”

  “If he didn’t kill him,” Florus said. “I expect all members of your caravan to present themselves tomorrow morning. That means no one leaves the inn tonight.”

  “If I may, excellency,” I said, “I have already been invited to dinner at the home of a local dignitary. Luke and Timothy, whom you met on your arrival, were also invited. May we still keep that engagement?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so,” Florus said. “Just be sure you don’t leave the city.”

  “Of course,” I replied. Now I just had to send a slave over to Apelles’ house to inform them that I would be dropping by for a visit in the evening and to please have a few horses ready for my use.

  “I’m sorry you won’t be present at dinner,” Florus said. “I had hoped to talk about your father’s writing. I’ve been particularly impressed by his volumes on The Scholar. Such a masterful outline of the training that every public man ought to have.”

  “I’ll look forward to that conversation tomorrow night,” I promised as I hoisted myself out of the pool and wrapped myself in a towel.

  * * * *

  As soon as I returned to the inn I had arrangements to make. Luke promised to take word to Kallisto about our visit and the need for horses. Timothy agreed to go with me, though I hesitated to ask someone else to defy a governor’s order. It’s one thing to go against authority oneself, quite a different matter to encourage another to do so. I also reminded Luke not to mention the possibility that Cornutus had been poisoned. For now we would satisfy ourselves with an official inquiry into who had murdered him the second time. I still hoped that the poisoner would give himself away in some fashion if he thought no one was aware of his crime.

  I caught Tacitus upon his return to the inn and was reassured to learn that he had said nothing about the poisoning.

  “Since you didn’t mention it,” he said, “I assumed you didn’t want it brought up.”

  “Something else I don’t want brought up is my real purpose for going out tonight.”

  “I thought you must have something devious in mind, to pretend that you’re going back into that den of Christians.”

  “Do you want to go with me?”

  “Pliny, my friend, you are no longer in charge of this investigation. The governor is here. What you need to do now is to follow his orders very carefully so you don’t end up in a great deal of trouble. Your refusal to torture Cornutus’ slaves may come back to haunt you yet.”

  “I think all will be forgotten tomorrow morning when I present Chryseis and Melissa at the governor’s inquest.”

  “You know where they are?”

  “I’m almost certain I do. If it hadn’t been for Florus’ untimely arrival, I mi
ght already have found them.”

  “But why can’t you just tell Florus and let him send soldiers tomorrow? That seems the sensible thing to do.”

  “Because I don’t think they’ll be there by tomorrow. And Florus isn’t going to bestir himself to do anything tonight.”

  “He isn’t a very energetic man, is he? But you’re taking an awful risk. This could damage any career you might hope to have in Rome.”

  “It may be the only chance I’ll have to get Chryseis back.”

  “I hope you won’t think me not a friend if I don’t go with you.”

  “You can actually do me a service by keeping an eye on Marcellus during the evening. Don’t let him talk Florus into torturing Cornutus’ slaves while I’m away. And see if you can find Tiberius Saturninus.”

  * * * *

  We actually did eat a light dinner at Apelles’ house, though I was too excited to have much appetite. Conversation around the table was strained, with only one non-Christian in the room. Luke and Timothy spent a lot of time talking to a handsome slave, a boy of twelve or so, named Polycarp, a recent addition to Apelles’ household.

  At last it was dark enough for us to leave. A slave would be sent later to inform the governor that Luke, Timothy, and I would be spending the night. To avoid attracting attention, we walked to the necropolis on the north side of town and found a servant of Apelles’ waiting for us with horses.

  The ride out to the old temple of Artemis didn’t take long. It seemed longer because we rode in silence. Timothy was a quiet fellow, as he had shown at dinner, and Damon was playing the slave’s role, to speak only when spoken to unless danger was imminent. That left me with some time to reflect. And I had a lot to think about.

  To begin with, there was the possible danger to myself of riding off into the night, armed only with a short sword, borrowed from Apelles’ son, and accompanied by two Christians. But I had unwittingly trusted one Christian for years and no harm had befallen me. How many other Roman aristocrats were harboring these people within their very walls, like some disease or infestation which you don’t suspect until it suddenly breaks out and overwhelms you? Or like Vesuvius, sitting there for centuries in the midst of thousands of unsuspecting people, building homes and growing grapes on the slopes of the slumbering volcano. Should the government investigate? Try to stamp them out?