Roman blood rsr-1

by Steven Saylor

'Ah, happens all the time these days. When I was a boy it was all small farmers hereabout, local people who passed their land from father to son. Now strangers come up from Rome, buying it all up. Nobody knows who owns half the land any more. Never your neighbours; instead it's some rich man down in Rome who comes up twice a year to play farmer.' He laughed, then his face darkened. 'And the larger the farms the more slaves they bring in. They used to march them right through the square here, or cart them through in wagons, until we put a stop to that and routed them off the main way. It doesn't do for men in chains to come through here and get a sniff of freedom. Too many unhappy slaves about make a man like me uneasy.'

  Still staring at nothing, the old man in the corner banged his cup against the table. The taverner waddled across the room. The least exertion made him wheeze and gasp for air.

  'So you worry about runaway slaves?' I said.

  'Things happen. Oh, not so much in the town, but I have a sister who married a farmer up north. Lives in the middle of nowhere. Of course they have their own household slaves and a few freedmen for protection. Even so, only a fool would leave his doors unlocked at night. I tell you, one of these days it's going to be more than just two or three runaway slaves. Imagine if it were twenty — or a hundred, and some of them professional killers. There's an estate not thirty miles up the way where they send slaves to be trained as gladiators. Imagine a hundred of those beasts escaped from their cages with nothing to lose.'

  'Ah, you're a fool!' barked the old man. He raised his cup and emptied it in a single draught. The red wine spilled from the corners of his grey mouth and dribbled down his grizzled neck. He slammed the cup down and stared rigidly ahead. 'Fool!' he said again. 'Nothing to lose, you say? They'd be crucified and disembowelled! Do you think Sulla and the Senate would let a hundred gladiators go about killing landholders and raping their wives? Even a slave doesn't want to have his hands nailed to a tree. Don't worry, misery won't object so long as there's plenty of fear to keep it in line.'

  The old man thrust out his chin and made a ghastly smile. I finally realized he was blind.

  'Of course, Father.' The fat Etruscan simpered and made a bow that the old man could not possibly have seen.

  I leaned forwards and turned the cup in my hand. 'Afraid of the slaves or not, sometimes it seems a man is not safe even in his own household. A father may not be safe even from his son. Only water this time.' I held up my cup. The taverner bustled over.

  'Whatever do you mean?' His hands were unsteady as he poured from the jug. He glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the old man.

  'I was only thinking of some gossip I heard yesterday in Rome. I mentioned my trip to some of my associates in the Forum and asked if they happened to know anything about Ameria. Well, most of them had never heard of it.'

  I took a long sip and fell silent. The taverner pinched his brow, marshalling a host of plump wrinkles in the furrow of his forehead. The old man moved at last, inclining his head in my direction. The little room was suddenly as quiet as a tomb.

  The Etruscan wheezed. 'And?'

  'And what?' I said.

  'The gossip!' It was the old man. He sneered and turned away, suddenly disinterested or pretending to be. 'The little pig lives for it. Worse than his mother ever was.'

  My host glanced at me and made a helpless grimace.

  I shrugged wearily, as if it were hardly worth the effort of telling. 'Only something about a trial about to take place in Rome, involving a man from Ameria. The name is Roscius, I think; yes, like the famous actor. Accused of — well, I'm almost ashamed to say it — accused of killing his own father.'

  My host nodded slightly and stepped back. He pulled a rag from the belt of his tunic, rubbed the beads of sweat from his forehead, then began wiping the counter, wheezing from the effort. 'Is that right?' he finally said. 'Yes, I'd heard something about it.'

  'Only something? A crime like that, in such a small place, so nearby, I'd have thought it would have been on everyone's lips.'

  'Well, it didn't exactly happen here.'

  'No?'

  'No. The crime actually occurred in Rome. That's where Old Man Roscius was murdered, so they say.'

  'You knew him, did you?' I tried to keep my voice light, as if I were only half-listening. My host might not be suspicious, but the old man certainly was. I could tell from the way he pursed his lips and slowly moved his jaw from side to side, listening to every word.

  'Old Sextus Roscius? No. Well, hardly. We used to see him in here occasionally when I was a boy, isn't that right, Father? But not much lately. Not for years and years. A citified Roman with worldly ways, that's what he became. Must've come home occasionally, but he never stopped in here. Am I right, Father?'

  'Fool,' the old man growled. 'Fat, clumsy fool…'

  My host wiped his forehead again, glanced at his father and gave me an embarrassed smile. I looked at the old man with as much feigned affection as I could muster and shrugged as if to say,

  I understand these things. Old and impossible to put up with, but what is a good son to do"?

  'Actually, when I asked if you knew this Roscius, I meant the son. If it's true, what he's charged with — well, you have to wonder what sort of man could commit such a crime.'

  'Sextus Roscius? Yes, I know him. Not well, but well enough to greet him on the street. A man about my own age. He'd come to market here on holidays. It wasn't rare for him to pay a visit to the Bleating Lamb.'

  'And what do you think? Could you tell by looking at him?'

  'Oh, he was bitter against his old man, no doubt about that. Not that he'd go on and on, he wasn't the ranting sort, even after he'd had a few. But he'd let out something every now and then. Probably other people would hardly notice, but I listen. I hear.'

  'Then you think he might actually have done it?'

  'Oh, no. I know for a fact that he didn't.’

  'And how is that?'

  "Because he was nowhere near Rome when it happened. Oh, there was-plenty of talk when the news came about the old man's death, and there were plenty of people who could tell you that Sextus hadn't left his main farm in Ameria for days.'

  'But no one accuses the son of actually wielding the knife. They say he hired assassins.'

  My host had no answer for that, but was clearly unimpressed. He furrowed his brow in thought. 'Strange that you should mention the murder. I was practically the first to hear about it.'

  'The first in Narnia, you mean?'

  'The first anywhere. In happened last September.' He stared at the opposite wall, remembering. 'The murder happened at night; yes, I suppose it must have. It was cold weather hereabouts, blustery winds and grey skies. If I was superstitious, I suppose I'd tell you I had a grim dream that night, or woken up with a ghost in the room.'

  'Impious!' the old man snapped, shaking his head in disgust. 'No respect for the gods.'

  My host seemed not to hear him, still staring into the depths of the mottled clay wall. 'But something must have woken me, because I was up very early the next morning. Earlier than my usual habit.'

  'Always was the lazy one,' the old man muttered.

  'There's no reason for a taverner to be up early; customers seldom come before mid-morning. But that morning I was up before daylight. Perhaps it was something I ate.'

  The old man snorted and scowled. 'Something he ate! Can you believe that?'

  'I washed and dressed. I left my wife sleeping and came down the stairs, into this room I stepped into the street. It was a bit chilly, but very still. Over the hills I could see the first streaks of dawn. The sky had cleared overnight; there was only a single cloud on the eastern horizon, lit up all red and yellow from below. And up the road there was a man coming from the south. I heard him first — you know how sound carries when the air is still and cold. Then I saw him, in a light chariot drawn by two horses, racing so fast that I almost stepped inside to hide myself. Instead I stood my ground, and as he drew by he slowed and stopped. He pulled o
ff the leather cap he was wearing, and then I saw it was Mallius Glaucia.'

  'A friend?'

  My host wrinkled his nose. 'Some man's friend, but not mine.

  Used to be a slave, and even then he was insolent and arrogant. Slaves take after their masters, they say, and that was never truer than with Mallius Glaucia.

  'You'll find two branches of the Roscius family over the hill in Ameria,' he went on. 'Sextus Roscius, father and son, the respectable ones who built up their farms and their fortunes; and those two cousins, Magnus and Capito, and their clan. Foul types I'd call them, though I can't say that I've ever had personal dealings with them more than to serve them a cup of wine. But you can tell that some people are dangerous just by looking at them. That's Magnus and old Capito. Mallius Glaucia, the man who came thundering up from the south that morning, was Magnus's slave from birth, until Magnus freed him. A reward for some unspeakable crime, I have, no doubt. Glaucia went on serving Magnus, and still does. As soon as I saw it was him in the chariot, how I wished I'd stepped back into the doorway before he'd had a chance to see me.'

  'A big man, this Mallius Glaucia?'

  'The gods themselves don't come any bigger.'

  'Fair of face?'

  'Fair-haired, maybe, but as ugly as a baby. Red-faced like a baby, too. Anyway, he comes thundering up in his chariot. "You're open early," he says. I told him I wasn't open at all yet, and made to step back inside. I was just closing the door when he blocked it with his foot. I told him again I wasn't open for business and tried to close the door, but he held his foot fast. Then he pushed a dagger through the breach. As if that weren't bad enough, the dagger wasn't clean and shiny — oh, no. The blade was covered with blood.'

  'Red or black?'

  'Not too fresh, but not too old either. It was mostly dry on the blade, but in places where it was thickest it was still a little moist and red in the centre. Try as I might I couldn't close the door. I thought of crying out, but my wife is a timid woman and my son is gone, my slaves would be no match against Glaucia and what help could I expect…' He glanced guiltily at the old man in the corner. 'So I let him in. He wanted wine, straight, without water. I brought him a cup; he downed it in a single swallow and then threw it against the floor and told me to bring him a bottle. He sat right where you're sitting now and drank down the whole thing. I tried to leave the room several times, but whenever I moved away he'd begin talking to me in a loud voice, in such a way and such a tone that I knew he meant me to stay and listen.

  'He said he'd come from Rome, starting well after dark. He said he came with terrible news. That was when he told me Sextus Roscius was dead. I didn't think much of it. "An old man," I said to him. "Was it his heart?" And Glaucia laughed. "Something like that," he said. "A knife in his heart, if you want to know." And he stabbed the bloody blade into the table.'

  My host pointed with his short, stubby arm. I looked down and saw beside my cup a deep gouge in the rough-hewn wood.

  'Well, I suppose he saw the look on my face. He laughed again — it must have been the wine. "Don't get all frightened, taverner," he says. "It wasn't me that did it. Do I look like the type who'd kill a man? But this is the very blade, pulled straight from the dead man's heart." Then he turned angry. "Don't look at me that way!" he says. "I told you I didn't do it. I'm just a messenger bringing bad news to the relatives back home." And then he staggered out of the door and got into his chariot and disappeared. Can you blame me if I say I'll never make a point of rising early again?'

  I stared at the table, into the scar left by the blade. By a trick of light and concentration it seemed to grow deeper and darker the longer I stared into it. 'So this man came to tell Sextus Roscius that his father had been murdered?'

  'Not exactly. That is, it wasn't Sextus Roscius he came to tell. The tale goes that Sextus didn't hear the news until later that day, after the gossip had already started making the rounds. A neighbour met him on the road and offered his condolences, never imagining that he hadn't yet heard. The next day a messenger sent by the old man's household arrived from Rome — he stopped in this very tavern — but by then it was stale news.'

  'Then whom did this Glaucia come to tell? His old master, Magnus?'

  'If Magnus was in Ameria. But that young scoundrel spends most of his time in Rome these days, mixing with the gangs, they say, and doing business for his elder cousin; I mean old Capito. That was probably the man Glaucia came to tell. Though you wouldn't expect Capito to weep for old Sextus; the two branches ofthe Roscius line are hardly fond of each other. The feud goes back for years.'

  The bloody knife, the messenger sent in the middle of the night, the old family feud; the conclusion seemed obvious. I waited for my host to spell it out, but he only sighed and shook his head, as if he had reached the end of the tale.

  'But surely,' I said, 'given what you've told me, no one believes that Sextus Roscius killed his father.'

  'Ah, that's the part I can't figure out. Can't figure it out at all. Because what everyone knows, hereabouts anyway, is that old Sextus Roscius was killed by Sulla's men, or at least by some gang acting in Sulla's name.'

  'What?'

  'The old man was proscribed. Named an enemy of the state. Put on the lists.'

  'No. You must be mistaken. You've confused the stories with another.'

  'Well, there were a few others from these parts who had regular business and houses in Rome who got put on the lists, and either lost their heads or fled the country. But I wouldn't be confusing them with Sextus Roscius. It's common knowledge hereabouts that the man was proscribed.'

  But he was a supporter of Sulla, I started to say, then caught myself.

  'It's like this,' the taverner said. 'A band of soldiers arrived from Rome a few days later and made a public announcement, declaring that Sextus Roscius pater was an enemy of the state and as such had been killed in Rome, and his property was to be confiscated by force and put up for auction.'

  'But this was last September. The proscriptions were already over; they'd been over for months.'

  'Do you suppose that was the end of Sulla's enemies? What was to keep him from tracking down one more?'

  I rolled the empty cup between my palms and stared into it. 'Did you actually hear this announcement yourself?'

  'Yes, as a matter of fact. They announced it first in Ameria, I'm told, but they did the same thing here, seeing as the towns have families in common. We were shocked, of course, but the wars have left so much bitterness, so much loss, I can't say that anyone shed a tear for the old man.'

  'But if what you say is true, then the younger Sextus Roscius was disinherited.'

  'I suppose he was. We haven't seen him around here for quite some time. The latest gossip says that he's down in Rome, staying with his old man's patroness. Well, there's obviously more to the stories than meets the eye.'

  'Obviously. Then who bought up the old man's estates?'

  'Thirteen farms, that's what they say he had. Well, old Capito must have been first in line, as he came away with three of the best, including the old family homestead. They say he tossed out young Sextus himself, kicked him right out the door. But it's his property now, fair and square; he bid on it at the state auction down in Rome.'

  'And the other farms?'

  'All bought up by some rich fellow in Rome; I can't recall that I ever heard his name. Probably never even set foot in Ameria, just another absentee landlord buying up the countryside. Like your employer, no doubt. Is that your problem, Citizen, jealousy? Well, this is one plum that's already been picked. If you're looking for good land in Ameria you'll have to look farther.'

  I looked out of the open door. From where she was tied, Vespa's tail cast a weirdly elongated shadow that flicked nervously across the dusty floor of the doorway. Shadows were long; the day was rapidly dying, and I had no plan for the night. I pulled some coins from my purse and laid them on the table. My host gathered them up and disappeared through a narrow doorway at the back of th
e shop, aiming sideways to squeeze himself through.

  The old man turned his head, pricking up his ears at the rustling noise. 'Greedy,' he muttered. 'Every coin he gets, he runs to put it into his little box. Has to keep a running tally hour by hour, can't wait until he closes the tavern. Always the fat one, always the greedy pig. It comes from his mother, not from me, you can tell by looking.'

  I stepped quietly towards the door, but not quietly enough. The old man shot to his feet and stepped into the doorway. He seemed to stare into my face through the milky egg-white membranes that covered his eyes. 'You,' he said, 'stranger. You're not here to buy land. You're here about this murder, aren't you?'

  I tried to make my face a mask, then realized there was no need. 'No,' I said.

  ‘Whose side are you on? Sextus Roscius, or the men who accuse him?'

  'I told you, old man—'

  'It is a mystery, how an old man could be proscribed by the state, and then his own son should be accused of the crime. And isn't it odd that wretched old Capito should be the one to profit? And odder still that Capito should be the first man in Ameria to get wind of the murder, and the message should be borne in the middle of the night by Glaucia — who could only have been sent by one man, that wicked Magnus. How did Magnus know of the incident so swiftly, and why did he dispatch a messenger, and how did he happen to possess the bloody dagger? It's all clear to you, isn't it? Or so you think.

  'My son tells you young Sextus is innocent, but my son is a fool, and you would be a fool to listen to him. He says he hears everything that's said in this room, but he hears nothing; he's always much too busy talking. I'm the one who hears. For ten years, since I lost my eyes, I've been learning how to hear. Before that, I never heard anything -1 thought I heard, but I was deaf, just as you are, just as every man with eyes is deaf. You would never believe the things I hear. I hear every word spoken in this room, and some that are not. I hear the words men whisper to themselves, not even realizing that their hps move or the breath still sighs between their lips.'

  I touched his shoulder, thinking to gently push him aside, but he stood his ground like an iron rod.