Old Bones (Marcus Corvinus Book 5)

by David Wishart

  With...

  And then it hit me. Oh, Jupiter! Jupiter Best and Greatest! Bubo handled antiques. And where did you find antiques by the barrow-load, just squirreled away out of sight where no one would ever see them again or know if they'd gone missing?

  Right.

  That was what Clusinus had been up to, I'd bet my last copper coin on it.

  The guy had been robbing tombs.

  32.

  Which, believe me, sounds a lot simpler a proposition than it is.

  Oh, sure, there're hundreds of the things in the cemeteries around Caere laid out and waiting, maybe even thousands, and the other Etruscan cities have just as many, even more. If we're talking just numbers, tomb robbing should rank pretty high on the list of lucrative criminal activities. Only it doesn't, not at all, and there are good reasons why it shouldn't.

  First of all, and most important, there's the religious angle. I'm no more superstitious than the next guy, but personally just the thought of breaking into a tomb gives me goosebumps, and the same would go for ninety- nine percent of the population, even the bastards who'd slit their grandmother's throat for a jug of third-rate Surrentine. You don't mess with the dead, ever; that's a rule everyone knows. These buggers have got their own ways of getting even, and they don't play around.

  Second's the law. Grave-robbing's a semi-religious offence, and there's only one penalty, crucifixion and half-burning. Sure, Perilla's philosopher pals could be right about the soul not surviving death, and if you're one of the free-thinkers who don't believe a proper funeral's important, then fine. Me, I'd hedge my bets, and so would most people, low-life included. The prospect of wandering around this side of the River for the next thousand years or so scares me silly.

  Third's security. The tombs themselves are locked, or their doors are bricked up if the family isn't there to use them any more. Also, the cemeteries are patrolled at night. Get caught by the local militia hanging around a graveyard after midnight with a crowbar and a pickaxe and it ain't no use claiming you were digging truffles. And as far as your future prospects are concerned thereafter, see point two.

  So. If Clusinus had been robbing tombs then it was no small deal. I'd never met the guy properly, so I couldn't make an assessment of his nerves, but he'd have to be some tough cookie, and I don't mean tough in the way that my pals Tolumnius and Baro were tough. Skulking around cemeteries alone after dark and breaking into tombs takes a special kind of courage. For a start he'd have to cope with the constant fear of the Watch butting in while his attention was on the business in hand. Because naturally he wouldn't know if or when the militia guys were going to come piling round the corner...

  I stopped.

  Wait a minute. Wait just one minute.

  Unless of course he did.

  Let's go back a bit. The dead were one thing, the living were another. Sure, any tomb robber would need iron nerves to do the job in the first place, but given these he was half way there. If he knew he was in no danger of being disturbed then breaking into a tomb was easy-peasy. The cemeteries covered at least as much ground as the town itself, and there were three of them. So long as the guy was careful not to leave any traces and kept to the older, out-of-the-way piles which weren't even visited any more there was no reason why the thefts would ever be noticed. All he'd need was someone high up in local government who could make sure that, wherever he was that particular night, the militia wasn't.

  Someone like the Caeretan mayor. The very crooked Caeretan mayor. Or, of course, one of his immediate family...

  Okay; so how would it work? I'd already got a connection between Aternius and Bubo through Arria Metella to match the link between Bubo and Clusinus. The triangle was complete. So. A scenario. Let's say there was more than one scam involved here, the tomb-robbing and the property angle. Tomb-robbing first. Clusinus is the muscle, Bubo's the brains and Aternius and his uncle are the sleeping partners who make it all possible. Bubo goes to Clusinus –forget why he chooses him for the present – and sets up a deal: together they'll go into the tomb-looting business, with Clusinus doing the heavy work and Bubo selling on the result through his brother in Rome where the markets are. Bubo tells Clusinus their necks are safe, because part of the profits will go as kickbacks to the Cominii who'll see to it that the scam proceeds undisturbed. Everyone wins, nobody loses: Aternius and his uncle get to tap into a flow of hard cash which they badly need to pull their finances out of the hole, Bubo gains access to a major source of antiquities which is for all practical purposes inexhaustible, and Clusinus is making a hell of a lot more than he could pull in growing apples and goats. As a scam, it's a literal gold mine, with maximum profit and minimum risk. Perfect, in fact.

  Only something screws up before it properly takes off. What that could've been was anybody's guess, but my bet reading backwards from what actually happened was that Clusinus, being Clusinus, had got greedy and had tried to pad out his share of the deal by soaking the Cominii. That would make sense, even if it was just a matter of threatening to spread ugly rumours: unlike simple fraud, tomb raiding isn't a gentleman's crime, and Caere's an old-fashioned town. Come the election, even the barest hint that the Cominian ticket was being funded from the sale of black market grave goods would have the guy's tail off the curule chair so fast his head would spin. So. The family decides to dissolve the partnership and plaster over the cracks. Being the clever bastards they are they don't just zero Clusinus and Bubo straight off; they work out a way to kill three birds with one stone. Hence the property scam. Old Navius is dead, his widow's loaded and looking round for a suitable replacement, and she's already got her eye on smoothie Aternius. The only fly in the financial ointment is young Navius, but if they can get rid of him with no risk to themselves then the Navius property is in the bag. So they set Clusinus up. Aternius kills Navius on Clusinus's land, making him the natural suspect; and with the Cominii running the local judicial system pinning the rap where it doesn't belong will pose no problems...

  Except that Aternius couldn't know in advance that Navius would be around that morning to be murdered, or that Clusinus would conveniently happen along and find the body. Plus half a dozen other glitches that shoved their way in along the line.

  I groaned. Shit. It didn't work.

  There was something there, though, I'd swear that on my grandmother's grave. It only needed thinking through a bit more; preferably with the help of a jug or two.

  I carried on down the Staircase and headed for home.

  Perilla, as usual, was reading: how that lady can waste so much valuable time on the sort of muck these soft-boiled egghead academics spew out beats me completely. I glanced at the title as I leaned over her shoulder and bit her neck: Alcidamas's On Writers and Sophists.

  Enough said. She hadn't got that one from Flatworm's library, that was sure. It didn't have any pictures, for a start.

  'Well, Marcus, did you have a nice day?' she said calmly. Her eyes hadn't lifted from the page she was reading.

  Bathyllus oozed up and handed me my welcome-home belt of Setinian (yeah, Setinian: the little guy had found Flatworm's secret cache) together with the jug. I took a swallow, then another. Nectar.

  'Not bad, lady.' I took the jug over to the chair next to the wall – we were on the terrace – and sat down. 'You fancy a trip to Rome?'

  She set Alcidamas down on her lap and stared at me. Understandable: Caere might be practically within spitting distance of the Head of the World but after the Sejanus business I'd wiped my sandals of the place and sworn it was for keeps. Even the thought of breathing the same air as the smug broad-striper bastards who ran things there and had twelve-year-old virgins raped just so they could execute them legally for treason turned my stomach. Especially since it had been partly my fault.

  'Why?' she said simply.

  'There's someone I have to talk to with an antique shop on the Sacred Way. A Publius Herminius Bubo.'

  'I thought he lived in Caere. Didn't you go to see him this mo
rning?'

  'That was his brother. He's dead.'

  'Dead?'

  'He had his head smashed in with a mason's hammer two days ago.' I refilled the cup. 'And you haven't answered my question.'

  'A mason's hammer?'

  Jupiter, was she being dense, or what? I'd've thought she'd've jumped at the chance, and all I got was a set of responses that would've disgraced a parrot.

  'Come on, Perilla,' I said. 'Cut it out. Forget murders for a minute. What about Rome?'

  She hesitated, still looking at me. 'If you want to, yes. We could stay at your mother's house. And Marilla would love it.'

  'Fine. We'll go tomorrow.' I took another swallow of wine. 'Where is the Princess?'

  'Out with Corydon. They're almost inseparable these days.' Another pause. 'Marcus, are you absolutely sure about this? I know how –'

  'Sure I'm sure. But it's straight in and straight out, right? If that's okay with you. You and the Princess can do a bit of shopping while I'm seeing Bubo Part Two and I'll meet you back at Priscus's.'

  She got up, laid Alcidamas on the table, walked over and kissed me. 'Whatever you like,' she said quietly. 'Only don't blame the city for the people who live in it, all right?'

  'Yeah,' I said, sinking another quarter pint of Setinian. The evening suddenly seemed a whole lot rosier. 'Thanks for the advice, lady. I'll bear it in mind.'

  33.

  We set out at first light, in the carriage, Perilla, the Princess and me inside – Corydon was relegated to the stables for the duration, although getting Marilla to agree to leave him had involved a fight that made the Battle of Beneventum look like a honey-wine-and-sponge-cake klatsch – and Bathyllus and Meton perched on the roof behind Lysias's box. I'd wondered a bit about the wisdom of that, but Meton had brought along his recipe books to edit and he was happy as a lark agonising over whether his hare's-meat casserole tasted better with an acetabulum of Massic added to the gravy or a cyathus (don't ask; I don't know what they are, either). How the bugger could work at all stuck on top of a coach on the worst stretch of road this side of the Alps I didn't know, but so long as it kept him from practising his filleting skills on our major-domo it was okay with me. The gods know how Bathyllus amused himself. He probably brought a supply of spoons to polish.

  The Princess was still half asleep and Perilla was busy watching the scenery. Me, I've never liked scenery: once you've seen one rustic hillside clad in shady arbutus and redolent with the heady scent of thyme you've seen them all. Besides, this was a business trip. I poured myself a cup of Setinian from the travelling flask and considered the Aternius-Bubo- Clusinus triangle.

  It had to work, whatever the flaws, because it was far too good to drop. The only question was how. Okay. So let's see what we'd got. First of all, I was fairly sure about the tomb-robbing. Bubo's business was antiques, the empty strongroom argued storage in bulk, at least in the short term, and barring the proceeds of multiple burglaries which would've been noticed locally Clusinus wasn't in any position otherwise to guarantee that volume of fenceable merchandise. Given that, the involvement of the Cominii also made sense. If Bubo and Co. were robbing tombs on a large scale, which they'd have to be doing to make the business worth the candle, then they'd need the backing of patrons with clout, and there wasn't no one better: the Cominii were already bent as a Suburan dice match and I had old Veluscius's word for it that financially they were up against the wall with nowhere left to go. Also, Bubo's wife was a slip off the old olive tree. So far so good.

  Second was the property scam. That I was sure of, too, at least in essence: marrying rich widows, especially when there're no kids to complicate matters, is a favourite way for good-looking entrepreneurs to pad out a shaky bank balance, and again thanks to Veluscius and my wineshop pal Perennius I knew Aternius and his uncle already had a land scheme up and running. And to provide factual backup I had the business of Clusinus's loan to offer and – maybe – Aternius's interest in burying Papatius.

  The problem was the murders. Clusinus's and Bubo's, no hassle: if I was right about the blackmail then Clusinus was two ways dead; once to shut his mouth, once to make sure his widow defaulted on the debt. And if Clusinus went, then Bubo would have to follow because the guy knew too much to live. Navius's murder was another matter. The Cominii had a motive in spades, sure, but no opportunity. And as for Hilarion the gods alone knew what foot that poor bastard had put out of line.

  I took a brain-lubricating swallow of Setinian. Okay. So let's re- examine the Navius business, taking as our basic premise that the Cominii are guilty as hell.

  The tomb-robbing scam's under negotiation, and Clusinus is pressing for the best deal he can get. He tries Bubo first, but Bubo sends him off with a flea in his ear: he's pulling his full weight already and he has his brother in Rome to square. So Clusinus goes to Aternius, or maybe to his uncle, it doesn't matter which because the two are an item. He doesn't use the word 'blackmail', because he's not that stupid; he just suggests that the Cominii might want to sub him out of their cut because after all he's the guy bringing home the actual bacon. Aternius, however, is no fool either. Maybe he and his uncle are having second thoughts about the whole business, and Clusinus trying to chisel them is the final straw; or maybe they've worked out the possibilities of a double-cross already, in which case he's playing right into their hands...

  I paused.

  Playing...

  Oh, Jupiter!

  I'd been lifting the cup for another mouthful: carefully, because although Lysias was a good driver and was missing as many potholes as he could we were still being bounced around like a pig in a blanket. Now I lowered it again, and my scalp began to tingle as the implications of that idea registered.

  That was it! It had to be!

  I'd been wrong; or partly wrong, at least. The Cominii had never had any intention of getting mixed up with tomb-robbing: it was too tricky, it was too dangerous, and when you got down to it whatever the cash return it was just too low-class. All they were ever interested in was the property scam.

  Hell! It was beautiful!

  I sat back. Right. Let's get this straight. Forget the blackmail; Clusinus could never have made it work without fouling his own nest, and he'd know it. Concentrate on the scam itself.

  So; the scenario. Bubo, knowing the Cominii are crooks, takes them the idea and offers to cut them in on the deal in return for their protection. They agree, but not because of the kickbacks: they know damn well that it's all academic, that the scam will never get off the ground because by that time both Bubo and Clusinus will be dead. No; they agree because when he's making his pitch Bubo tells them who his partner is. That was the clincher. Bubo and Clusinus weren't murdered to cover up the Cominii's involvement in tomb-robbing; in the event, there was no tomb-robbing to cover up for, as witness the empty storeroom. They died because Clusinus was Navius's neighbour and already Vetuliscum's number one bad boy.

  Forget whether the Cominii had already decided to target the Navii or if Bubo's proposition suggested it to them; either way worked, and it didn't really matter. The important thing was, they now had the perfect fall guy. Aternius – let's say it was Aternius, because the role fitted that smooth bastard to a T – invites Bubo and Clusinus round to discuss terms. Or maybe this was a private deal on the side with Clusinus alone. Whichever it was, he agrees to join in on one condition, that Clusinus act as his agent in putting Attus Navius underground and clearing the way for a profitable marriage with Sicinia Rufina. As a simple quid pro quo that would work: it put each party in the other's pocket and cemented the partnership. Clusinus is safe – he thinks – because with Aternius himself tagged to be the investigating officer any later investigation is rigged from the start, and the success of the tomb-robbing scam hinges on his staying alive and free. Also, no doubt, there's a considerable extra sweetener involved. What he doesn't know, crucially, is that once Navius is dead Aternius and his uncle mean to drop him and his partner like hot bricks. Worse, that they'l
l nail him for the murder after all; legitimately, because he'd actually have done it. And with his reputation he can make all the counter-claims he likes and still end up strangled by the public executioner nem. con., leaving Navius dead and the Cominii home and dry.

  So when the opportunity arises Clusinus kills Navius as per contract, thinking that he's protected. Only then things start to go wrong for Aternius. Instead of an open-and-shut case with Clusinus as the only suspect the place is crawling with them. First and foremost there's bloody- gormless Priscus, the Roman middle class's prize patsy. Then there's Papatius, who's followed Thupeltha who makes a possible third. Aternius is stymied; he can't go straight for Clusinus as planned because now there're too many variables involved and he'd have to justify his choice above the others. Also there's a smartass Roman purple-striper nosing around in the wings with ideas of his own.

  So he changes his plans. Clusinus, remember, has no grounds for suspicion: he still believes he's safe and the deal is going through according to the agreement. Aternius invites him for a talk up by the irrigation pond, zeroes him himself and shoves him under the hurdle. That last is important, because the nosey Roman has dug up a fresh suspect and he can make a case, or enough of one to serve Aternius's purposes: all the guy's interested in is that someone should be nailed, and fast, so the whole thing gets buried and forgotten. Also, maybe, he smells a future chance of getting his hands on Thupeltha's land and consolidating his property into one big stretch that takes in half Vetuliscum. To make sure Papatius is in the running for Clusinus's murder as well – and so stitch the investigation up properly – the time of death has to be left uncertain, hence the hurdle. Then it's just a matter of pushing things on as quickly as possible by arresting Papatius and waiting for the guy with the noose. And if the nosey Roman doesn't like it then tough cheese.