'Ah!' He looked up, smiling broadly, and instandy picked up the refrain: ' "Pity me, pity me! They have segmented my day like the teeth of a comb!" '
'Ah, you know the play,' I began, but he was not to be interrupted.
' "When I was a boy my stomach was my clock, and it never steered me wrong; now even if the table overflows there's no eating till shadows are long. Rome is ruled by the sundial; Romans starve and thirst all the while!"
We shared a quiet laugh. 'Citizen,' I said, 'do you know this neighbourhood?'
'Of course. I've lived here for years.'
'Then I'm sure you can help me. Starving and thirsty I'm not, but there is another craving I long to satisfy. I'm a lover of birds.'
'Birds? None around here but the pigeons. Too stringy for my taste.' He smiled, showing a wide gap between his teeth.
'I was thinking of a more elegant fowl. At home in water, on the earth, or heaven-bound. A friend of a friend told me there were swans hereabout.'
He understood at once. 'The House of Swans, you mean.'
I nodded.
'Right down that street.' He pointed to the space between the wine shop and the red tenement.
'Might one of these other streets take me there as easily?'
'Not unless you want to walk twice as far as you need to. No, this street is the only practical way. It's a single long block with only a few dead-end streets branching off. And the walk will be worth your while,' he added with a wink.
'I certainly hope so. Come, Tiro.' We turned and walked towards the narrow street. I could see only a little way down its length. The buildings on either, side were high. Even in the bright morning light its. walls seemed to close around us, dank and musty, a dim crevice of mortar and brick.
The buildings along its length were mostly long tenements, many with only a single door and no windows at street level, so that we walked for long stretches with blank walls on either side. Upper storeys overhung the lower; they would provide shelter when it rained, but they would also create deep pockets of shadow at night. All along the way, every fifty paces or so, brackets were mounted in the walls, filled with the still-smouldering stumps of last night's torches. Under each torch a small stone was set into the wall; each stone was engraved with the profile of a swan, the crude sort of work done by cheap artisans. The tiles were advertisements. The torches were there to guide the night-time clientele to the House of Swans.
'It should be soon,' Tiro said, looking up from the tablet.
'We've passed a side street to our left already, and now another to our right. According to Rufus's directions, Sextus Roscius found a large bloodstain in the middle of the street. But you don't think it could still be there, after all this time—'
Tiro's words never quite became a question. Instead his voice dropped on the final word as he looked down between his feet and came to a sudden stop. 'Here,' he whispered, and swallowed loudly.
Consider that a man's body contains a great deal of blood. Consider also the porous nature of paving stones, and the barely adequate drainage of many Roman streets, particularly those at the lower elevations. Consider that we had received a very light rainfall that winter. Even so, old Sextus Roscius must have lain for a very long time in the centre of the street, bleeding and bleeding, to have left such a large, indelible stain.
The stain was almost perfectly round and as far across as a tall man's arm. Towards the edges it became blurred and faded, blending imperceptibly with the general grime. But nearer the centre it was still quite concentrated, a very dark, blackened red. The day-to-day stamp of passing feet had worn the surface of the stones to their normal, oily smoothness, but when I knelt down to look more closely I could still detect tiny, desiccated crusts of red in the deeper fissures.
I looked up. Even from the centre of the street it was impossible to see into any of the second-storey windows except at a severely oblique angle. To see from the windows onto the street one would have to lean far over the sill.
The nearest door was several feet farther up the street; this was the entrance to the long tenement on our left. The wall on our right was equally featureless, except for a food shop a little way behind us, at the corner where the street intersected with a narrow cul-de-sac. The shop was not yet open. A single square door, very tall and broad, covered the entire front. It was a wooden door, coloured with a pale yellow wash and marked along the top with various glyphs for grains, vegetables, and spices. Much lower down, in one corner, there was another marking on the door that made me suck in my breath when I saw it.
'Tiro! Here, come see this.' I hurried back and squatted down beside the door. From the level of a man's waist and below, the wood was covered with a film of soot and dust that thickened into a grimy band as it neared the street. Even so, at knee level, the handprint beneath the dirt was still quite clear to see. I placed my hand atop it and felt a strange shudder, knowing without a doubt that I was touching a bloody handprint left months before by Sextus Roscius.
Tiro looked at the handprint and back to the stain in the street. 'They're so far apart,' he whispered.
'Yes. But the handprint must have been made first.' I stood and walked past the door to the corner. The narrow little branch street was not a street at all, or if it ever had been, was now bricked in at the end with a solid two-storey wall. The space itself was perhaps twenty feet deep, and no more than five feet wide. At the far end someone had been burning refuse; bits of rubbish and bone peeked out of a waist-high pile of grey and white ash. No windows overlooked the space, either from the surrounding walls or from the tenement across the street. The nearest torches were mounted at least forty steps away. At night the little cul-de-sac would be utterly dark and unseen until one passed directly before it — the perfect place to He in ambush.
'This was where they waited, Tiro, on this very spot, hidden in this recess, knowing he would come this way to answer the note from the woman Elena. They must have known what he looked like, well enough to recognize him from the light of the torches carried by his slaves, because they did not hesitate at all to spring out and begin stabbing him, here at the corner.'
I walked slowly towards the handprint. 'The first wound must have been somewhere in his chest or belly — I suppose they must have looked him in the face to be sure — because he had no trouble touching the wound, clutching it, smearing his whole hand with blood. Somehow he broke away. Perhaps he thought he could push this door open, but he must have fallen to his knees — you see how low the handprint is.' I glanced up the street. 'But the real slaughter took place there, in the middle of the street. Somehow he managed to scramble back to his feet and stagger that far before they overcame him.'
'Perhaps the slaves were trying to fight off the assassins,' Tiro said.
'Perhaps.' I nodded, though I could more easily imagine them bolting in a blind panic at the first glint of steel.
I bent down to examine the handprint again. The high, broad door gave a shudder and sprang outward, hitting me square in the nose.
'Here, what's that?' came a voice from inside. 'Another vagrant, sleeping in front of my shop? I'll have you beaten. Get on, let me open the door!'
The door shuddered again. I blocked it with my foot until I could stand and step safely aside.
A gnarled face peered from behind the door. 'I said, get on!' the man growled. The door swung outward in a wide arc, vibrating on its hinges, until it slammed against the wall beyond the cul-de-sac, completely covering over the narrow walkway where the assassins had hidden.
'Oh, not a vagrant,' the old man muttered, looking me up and down. I was still rubbing my nose. 'My apologies.' His voice carried not the least hint of friendliness or regret.
"This is your shop, sir?'
'Of course it's my shop. And has been since my father died, which was probably before you were born. His father's before that.' He squinted up at the sunlight, shook his head as if the brightness disgusted him, and shuffled back into the shop.
"Yo
u're only now opening the store?' I said, following him. 'It seems rather late.'
'It's my shop. I open when I'm ready.'
'When he's ready!' A voice shrieked from somewhere beyond the counter at the back of the shop. The long room was steeped in shadow. After the burning light of the street I stared into the gloom like a blind man. 'When he's ready, he says! When I'm finally able to get him out of bed and dressed is when he's ready. When I'm ready, he could say. One of these days I won't bother to get out of bed, I'll just He about like he does, and then where will we be?'
'Old woman, shut up!' The man tripped against a low table. A basket tipped over, and dried olives were scattered across the floor. Tiro stepped from behind me and began gathering them up.
"Who's this?' said the old man, stooping over and squinting. 'Your slave?'
'No.'
"Well, he acts like a slave. You wouldn't want to sell him?' 'I told you, he's not my slave.'
The old man shrugged. 'We used to have a slave. Until my stupid son freed the lazy bastard. That's who used to open the shop every morning. What's wrong if an old man likes to sleep late, if he's got a slave to open the shop for him? He didn't steal much, either, even if he was a lazy bastard. He should still be here, slave or not. A freedman has certain obligations to those who freed him, everybody knows that, legal obligations, slave or not, and right now is when we need him. But he's off in Apulia somewhere, got himself a wife. Give them their freedom and the first thing they want to do is go off and breed like decent folk. He used to open the shop. Didn't steal much, either.'
While he rambled on, my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. The shop was in a dilapidated state, dusty and unswept. Half the shelves and counters were empty. The wrinkled black olives Tiro had scrambled to retrieve were covered with dust. I lifted the lid of a clay urn and pulled out a dried fig. The flesh was spotted with grey mould. The whole room was permeated with the musty odour of a house long unused, pierced by the sweet, sour stench of rotted fruit.
'How would you know?' piped a shrill voice from the back of the shop. I could see the woman more clearly now. She wore a dark shawl and seemed to be chopping something with a knife, punctuating each phrase with a sharp blow against the counter. 'You don't know anything, old man, or else you can't remember. Your head's like a sieve. That good-for-nothing Gallius stole from us all the time. I'd have had his hands cut off for stealing, only then what use would he have been to anyone? You can't sell a slave if he hasn't got hands, and nobody'll buy a known thief except the mines and the galleys, and there's no money in dead flesh, as the saying goes. He was no good. We're better off without his kind.'
The man turned towards me and made a face behind the woman's back. ‘Well, then, are you here to buy something or to listen to the old woman talk nonsense?'
I glanced about, searching for something that looked reasonably edible. 'Actually, it was the signs on the door outside that drew my attention. The little symbols for fruits, grains…'
'Ah, Gallius did those, too. Just before my son freed him. He was a talented slave, even if he was lazy. He hardly ever stole from us.'
'There was one sign in particular I noticed. Unlike the others. Near the bottom of the door — the handprint.' His face hardened. 'Gallius didn't paint that.' 'I didn't think so. It looks almost like blood.' 'It is.’
'Old man, you talk too much.' The woman scowled and banged her knife against the counter. 'Some things are to be seen but not spoken of.'
'Shut up, old woman! If it were up to me, I'd have washed it off a long time ago, but you wanted it left there, and as long as it's there you can't be surprised if people notice it' 'How long has it been there?'
'Oh, months and months. Since last September, I suppose.' I nodded. 'And how—'
'There was a man killed in the middle of the street a rich man, from what I heard. Imagine, stabbed to death right in front of my shop.'
'After dark?'
'Of course — otherwise the door would have been open, wouldn't it? By Hercules — imagine if he'd come stumbling in here when the shop was open! There would never have been an end to the talk and the trouble.'
'Old man, you don't know anything about it, so why don't you just shut up? Ask the good man again if he came to buy something.' The woman kept her head bowed, like a bull's, staring at me from beneath her thick eyebrows.
'I know a man was killed, if you don't mind,' barked the old man.
‘We saw nothing, heard nothing. Only the gossip the next morning.'
'Gossip?' I said. 'Then there was talk in the neighbourhood. Was he a local man?'
'Not that I knew o£' said the man. 'Only they say some of the regulars from the Swans were in the street when they turned him over next morning and recognized his face.'
'The Swans?'
'A house of entertainments, for men. I wouldn't know anything about it myself' He rolled his eyes back in his head, indicating his wife, and lowered his voice. "Though my boy used to tell some pretty wild stories about the place.'
The knife banged against the counter with a special ferocity.
'At any rate, it happened some time after we closed up the shop and went upstairs for the night.'
'Then you heard nothing? I'd think there might have been screams, some other noises.'
The man started to answer, but the woman interrupted.
'Our rooms are at the back of the building. We don't have a window on the street at the front. What's your interest in the matter, anyway?'
I shrugged. 'I only happened to be walking past and noticed the handprint. It seemed strange that no one should have covered it over.'
'My wife,' the old man said, with a pained expression. 'Superstitious, like most women.'
The knife came down. 'It stayed there for a very good reason. Have we had any thefts since it happened? Have we?'
The old man wrinkled his lips. 'She imagines that it keeps out thieves at night. I told her it was more likely to keep out customers.'
'But when the door's open, nobody can see it, it's hidden on the other side. It's only when the door's shut that you see it from the street, only when we're closed, and that's when we need the protection. You call me superstitious? A common criminal will think twice about robbing a shop after he's seen a bloody handprint on the entrance. They chop off a thief s hands, you know. It carries a power, I tell you. If we had contrived it ourselves, if it were anything less than blood, it would mean nothing, protect nothing. But the mark of a dying man, made with his own blood by his own hand, it carries a power. Ask the stranger here. He could feel it. Couldn't you?'
'I felt it!' It was Tiro, standing behind me. Three pairs of eyes turned to watch him blush apple-red.
‘You're sure you won't sell him?' asked the old man, who suddenly started to wheeze.
'I told you already—’
'A power in it!' shrieked the old woman.
'Tell me: who saw the murder? There must have been gossip. People are in and out of your shop all day. If someone actually witnessed it, you would know.'
The old man abruptly stopped wheezing. He stared at me for a long moment, then looked at his wife. As far as I could see she only scowled back, but it may be that she made some sign imperceptible to my eyes, for when he turned back it seemed he had been given grudging permission to speak.
'There was one person… a woman. She lives in the tenement across the way. Her name is Polia. A young woman, a widow. Lives with her son, the little mute boy. It seems I recall another customer saying that Polia was talking to everyone about the murder right after it happened, how she had seen it with her own eyes, looking out of her window. Naturally, the next time they came into the shop I asked her about it. And do you know what? She wouldn't speak a word about it, turned as mute as the boy, except to say that I should never ask her again, and not to tell anyone anything that might…' He abruptly clamped his jaw shut with a guilty twitch.
'Tell me,' I said, picking through the dried figs to find a few worth eating, 'doe
s the little mute boy like figs? Tiro, give the man a coin from my purse.'
Tiro, who had been carrying my bag across his shoulder, reached into it and pulled out a copper as. 'Oh, no, more than an as, Tiro. Give the man a sesterce, and let him keep the change. After all, I have an account for such expenses from your master.'
The old man accepted the coin and looked at it suspiciously. Beyond him I could see his wife, chopping away with an expression of grudging satisfaction.
'Such a quiet slave, and such fine manners. You're sure you wouldn't like to sell him?'
I only smiled and motioned to Tiro to follow. Before I stepped into the sunlight I turned back. 'If your son insisted on selling the only slave you had, why isn't he here to help you himself?'
As soon as the words were spoken, I knew the answer. I bit my lip, wishing that words once said could be unspoken.
The woman abruptly hurled the knife across the room, plunging it into the wall with a shudder. She threw her arms heavenward and flung herself face down across the counter. The old man bowed his head and wrung his hands. In the gloom of the dilapidated shop they seemed posed in an eerie tableau, frozen in a sudden eruption of grief that was almost terrifying, almost comic.
'The wars,' the old man muttered. 'Lost in the wars…'
I turned and put my arm around Tiro, who stood dumbfounded. Together we stole into the sunshine of the street.
10
The tenement house across the way was of fairly recent construction. The windowless walls racing the street had as yet been defaced with only a modest amount of electioneering slogans (elections having continued, though without much enthusiasm, under Sulla's dictatorship). More common were some choice selections of ribald graffiti, probably left, to judge from the content, by satisfied customers on their way home from the House of Swans. I saw Tiro twisting his head to catch one of the more obscene phrases, and clicked my tongue like a disapproving schoolmaster. But with one eye I scanned the litanies myself, curious to see if a certain name appeared; but Elena — she who had summoned Sextus Roscius — and whatever specific talents Elena might possess were not mentioned.
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