The Mammoth Book of Classical Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  Indeed, there was no labyrinth of clues, no puzzle. Everything was as clear as writing on the walls, the letters diminishing to a single, final truth.

  She had concealed nothing. With utter contempt she showed me where she had left more chicken feet bundled above the door, and yet more places where she had traced mysterious sigils and curses on the walls with charcoal. And there were other masks she had worn, to provide other apparitions. There were even two black dogs kept tied up in a shed behind the garden. The poor creatures seemed starving. I unleashed them and let them run.

  At the very last, Plautilla showed me the place in the cellars where she had set the skull of a child on an altar and traced signs on it in blood with her finger.

  This alone had not been designed for her mother to discover. This alone, she had done in private. I wondered if Plautilla might not be the credulous one, even slightly mad. What did she believe?

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ she said. ‘If this is all rubbish and doesn’t have any effect, then how are you going to prove that I murdered my mother? I just did a little show and dance for her. She always wished we could have theatrical entertainments again, like in the old days. So I am innocent of any crime. Let me go. And get out. This is my house now.’

  I let go of her and picked up the skull. It felt fresh, boiled to make it bare, rather than one from which, over time, the flesh has naturally decayed. Plautilla almost had a point. I could not prove poison. There was a case here for criminal witchcraft, but if Plautilla argued that she did not believe in these things, that they were only evidence of a much lesser crime, a sort of fraud, and no heathen gods or demons had been seriously invoked, she might win. She had enough money now to bribe any judge I had ever encountered.

  What then?

  The skull. It was fresh, the one thing she had too-brazenly flaunted. She had at the very least desecrated a recent grave, or, more likely, murdered some unknown child, perhaps because she truly believed, or merely to make her own performance more convincing.

  These matters become so simple when one detail is enough, and you don’t have to prove anything more.

  But now that the world is coming to an end, there are signs and portents everywhere, and we who do not believe still see them, just like everyone else.

  In the morning I conducted Plautilla to my carriage, bound. As I was now serving in my official capacity, I put on the uniform of my office, which included a military helmet and a mailed cuirass. I wore a sword, which clinked and clattered as I walked. I looked up at the house one last time, certain I would never see it again. I wondered if the ghost of its mistress would haunt the place.

  In the course of our journey, Plautilla cursed me, sometimes speaking in her supposed supernatural speech, still trying, I think, to awaken some superstitious fear in me. Sometimes she spoke of old times, pretending we had been friends once. It was all I could do not to strike her.

  We came to a main road, then to an imperial posting station. In my official capacity, I could draw on supplies here, have my horses looked after, or even get fresh horses if I were in that much of a hurry.

  But the German lout in charge laughed when I showed him the badge of my office.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  Several of his barbarian companions gathered around, snickering.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Your little Augustus has been booted out.’ The German sashayed, as if to indicate a little girl. ‘The army in Ravenna killed Orestes the patrician, and his little baby emperor is gone . . . away.’ The Germans laughed. Some of them drew their fingers across their throats.

  Actually the emperor Romulus was about sixteen at the time, and I later found out that he was not killed, merely sent to live near Naples, but he was indeed the last.

  ‘What’s more,’ the German said, ‘our general Odoacer decided to make himself king. So there isn’t any Roman Empire anymore, and there’s no Roman law, and we don’t have to obey you.’

  Again the Germans laughed.

  ‘I think I know what you will obey,’ I said. I flipped a golden solidus onto the counter. It fell reverse side up, with the cross showing.

  Later, I unbound Plautilla and let her eat dinner across from me, seated at a table in the German manner. I hoped she found this an unbearable hardship.

  ‘You have to let me go,’ she said. ‘You heard what the man said. There’s no law anymore. At least none that you represent.’

  ‘I ought to kill you then, and it wouldn’t be murder.’

  She almost laughed, but her laughter froze in her throat.

  Yet I did not kill her, if only because by doing so my hands would be indelibly soiled.

  So I left her there. I gave the Germans a couple more coins and implied that they should do with Plautilla whatever they felt appropriate.

  Never mind law and conscience. Thus we are compromised.

  Can a soul be damned which does not believe in souls or damnation? A puzzle. A labyrinth. I am without a clue and deduce nothing.

  Jesus Christ have mercy.

  BEAUTY MORE STEALTHY

  Mary Reed and Eric Mayer

  It is easy to imagine that after the fall of the Roman Empire, barbarian hoards overran Rome, civilization collapsed and the world entered the Dark Ages. It wasn’t really like that, and these last two stories prove that point. For a start, the Emperor Constantine had moved his imperial capital away from Rome to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in AD 330. After the death of Theodosius I in AD 395 the Empire was split between the West, centred on Rome, and the East, in Constantinople. Even after the Empire in the West fell in AD 476, the Empire in the East continued for another thousand years. In the first few centuries the traditions of the Roman Empire remained, though it became increasingly influenced by Near Eastern tradition. The following story is the third by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer about John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who ruled from AD 527–65.

  Because Theodore was a meticulous man, a virtue in his former profession as a barber, every member of his household, save one, was able to mark the hour at which his wife Anna was found dead in her bedroom. To insure that he would never be late for anything, and that nothing would ever be late for him, Theodore had placed clocks everywhere in the elegant city home which had formed a part of his wife’s dowry.

  So Peter, who was stirring the dates he was stewing in honey when a high-pitched cry startled him, was able to see the time by checking the height to which the measuring stick had floated in the urn beside the kitchen brazier.

  And when the wailing began next door to the guest room in Lady Anna’s apartments, where Lady Sophia was just removing her veil and shaking the dust of the street from her cloak, she immediately shot an annoyed glare at the water clock on the dressing table and noted the level to which the cross-shaped float had descended in its silver bowl.

  Even Hypatia, who was in the garden shoveling the last spadeful of dirt on to the spot in the flowering herbs where she’d buried her mistress’s cat, when she heard screams coming from the house, had only to turn her dark-maned head towards the sundial which had not yet been reached by the shadows cast by the surrounding walls.

  Only Euthymius, Anna’s attendant, did not note the time, because when he announced himself with a soft knock, tiptoed delicately into his mistress’s room and nearly tripped over her body, the elaborate mechanical clypsedra there had been knocked out of its wall niche onto the floor.

  Now John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, knelt beside the remnants of the clypsedra. The bent tubes and bits of decorative metalwork were scattered across the tiles. The thin, sunburnt Greek carefully picked up the engraved face of the clock. Its rod and flotation device hung limply from the pointer which the ascent of the water in the clock’s vessel had pushed to the ninth hour on the dial. It was now the eleventh hour.

  John tested the pointer with his finger. It was set firmly enough, he supposed, to have resist
ed the impact when it hit the floor. He applied more force until it slipped backwards along the dial. If only time could really be reversed.

  ‘As Christ is my witness, it was the tenth hour when I heard Euthymius cry out,’ said Peter. The wizened cook’s eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.

  ‘I too was disturbed at that time,’ agreed Sophia. She dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief.

  Hypatia, the young gardener, looked on mutely, dark eyes wide. She had only just stopped crying for the poor cat. She was not ready to cry for its owner. Finally John reassured her in Egyptian and she answered quietly in her native tongue.

  Euthymius, whose shrill cries had alerted the rest of the household, now stood by silently, tears streaming down his pudgy face. John felt an irrational revulsion toward the eunuch attendant.

  In the cramped room, the fragrance of perfume mingled with the smell of death. All was in preparation for evening. Anna’s finest robes had been laid out across the yellow and white coverlet of the nuptial bed, a pair of white gloves lay on the dressing table, alongside her jeweled combs and brooches, and white rose petals were strewn across the floor, bed and furniture.

  ‘She must have died an hour before Euthymius discovered her,’ mused John. ‘She must have fallen against the clock and knocked it to the floor. The dial stopped when it hit. Is there anyone in the house other than those present? Was anybody else in the house earlier?’

  ‘No one today.’ Sophia was firm. ‘Except for your friend Anatolius. But you know that, because he is the one who brought this dreadful news back to the palace. It was to be a special day, after all,’ she added, bringing the handkerchief to her dry eyes again.

  None of the others disagreed. ‘I want no one to leave the house, then,’ John announced. He had no power under law to give such an order but who in this modestly wealthy household would contradict the Lord Chamberlain? Aside, perhaps, from Anna’s husband, a man of modest origins who had never accepted his place. John was afraid Theodore might insist upon the authorities being brought in at once.

  But the horror of his wife’s shocking death had at least temporarily humbled even the former tonsor. A handsome man with a carefully clipped beard, he had placed his back to the far wall as if to remain as far as possible from the body of his wife. He did not try to contradict the Lord Chamberlain but simply nodded towards the two excubitors (watchmen) John had recruited to accompany his small party to Theodore’s house.

  ‘See the entrances are guarded.’ The tone of command used by the master of the house came easily for he had ordered more than one great man to lower his head, the better to shave the back of his neck. ‘You,’ he indicated the larger of the two, ‘station yourself at the tradesmen’s entrance. Euthymius, show the guard where he is to take up his post.’

  The watery-eyed attendant composed himself with a visible effort and led the excubitor away.

  ‘The tradesmen’s entrance opens on the alley,’ Theodore explained to John. ‘If anyone tried to force his way in, he would probably choose that door.’

  ‘I’m more concerned with anyone who might try to leave,’ John softly replied.

  ‘Well, I can assure you we will all remain here, for the night at least. But, when the sun rises . . .’ Theodore’s voice cracked and John saw his eyes move toward the body of his wife. ‘. . . When the sun rises, I must . . . begin making arrangements. I –’

  ‘I understand. In the meantime, you may move her to a more suitable spot, Theodore. But, please, touch nothing else in the room.’

  Theodore nodded, but remained silent. His face was nearly as ashen as his wife’s.

  ‘What killed her?’ John asked the physician.

  Gaius made a frown, as if he were just considering the question, although he had examined the body for some time while John stood by. He was stout and had the bulbous red nose of one who worshipped Bacchus too freely and too often. He was not pleased, being dragged at a moment’s notice to a consultation. And even less pleased because he’d not been sought out for his expertise but merely because his place of business was on the way to the house. ‘There was evidence of vomiting,’ he said at last. ‘That would implicate the digestive faculty, some imbalance in the upper part of the stomach, not the lower. Notice the yellow bile – please forgive my drawing attention, Theodore – on the front of the tunic – honey produces yellow bile. A tainted sweet, perhaps?’

  John looked down into Anna’s face. Her skin, beneath white chalk, was tinged with blue. John had talked to her at more than one formal dinner at the palace. Her features had been plain, her mind a rich embroidery. Now only the unremarkable features remained, incongruously painted, thin lips ochered, narrow eyes surrounded with kohl, stubby fingernails reddened, her hair braided with beads. How humiliated she would have been to be seen like this by others than her husband.

  ‘A tainted sweet,’ John mused. ‘Do you mean one turned bad, or poisoned?’

  Gaius hesitated. As a physician at the Byzantine court he had seen even more poisonings than John and had learned discretion. ‘Ah, as to that, I cannot be sure. I fear a physician serves not the dead but the living.’

  ‘Among whom you count yourself,’ snapped John.

  Gaius reddened.

  ‘And what about the blue around the lips, Gaius? I am not a physician, but I have seen poisonings.’

  ‘An imbalance of the humours may be brought about by means both natural and unnatural, Lord Chamberlain. If only I had been summoned sooner . . .’

  John laid a thin brown hand on Anna’s pale, upturned palm and bid her a silent farewell. He had been fond of her. Like John, she had been forced to be more a creature of intellect than she might have desired.

  John climbed to his feet. Bringing him closer to Gaius’ flushed face. He smelled wine on the man’s breath. The physician had been drinking when Anatolius pounded frantically at his door to summon him.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you would have balanced the humours by letting the blood. Well, our friend’s humours have found their ultimate equilibrium without your help.’ John’s words displayed a glibness he did not feel.

  John faced Anatolius across the scarred wooden table in the kitchen. The air was still redolent of honey, leeks, mussels, and the rest of the special dinner Anna had ordered but would never consume.

  ‘I want to speak to you first, my friend. You know the grounds well, don’t you? Especially the gardens?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been here . . . often . . . lately’

  Despite the renowned beauty of the grounds of the Imperial Palace, Anatolius, personal secretary to Justinian, had never before been one for gardens, unless perhaps to dally with his love of the hour, among the fragrant blossoms of the yellow garden or, if he was fortunate, the darker groves where light would be the last thing lovers would wish. John’s young friend was, it seemed, cursed with a sensitivity to plants. His eyes and nose tended to stream in their proximity. He was prostrated as easily by a flower as by a woman.

  It had, therefore, been a source of puzzlement to John that lately Anatolius never turned down an invitation to dine at the house of Anna and Theodore. For Anna was as famous for her devotion to her garden as Theodore was for his devotion to his wife.

  Now, John was faced with another, more somber puzzle.

  ‘You haven’t asked me why I didn’t call in the authorities.’ John was blunt.

  ‘Nor have you asked me why I alerted you rather than the prefect.’

  John smiled thinly. ‘I speak a little Egyptian, from my years in Alexandria. The new servant – Hypatia – I see she is a lovely young thing. From Egypt. Named after the philosopher, no doubt. It is something to do with her, I imagine.’

  ‘So why didn’t you call in the authorities?’

  John paused, choosing his words. ‘The authorities are very clumsy. They are used to dealing with clumsy criminals, who slit throats in dark alleys. There is something – delicate – about this murder.’

  ‘You don’t believe it was tai
nted food, do you?’

  ‘The lady retired to her room, when?’

  ‘The seventh hour or maybe the eighth, according to what Theodore told me.’

  ‘And before then she had been perfectly well.’

  ‘Theodore said she’d had a bit to drink. To calm her nerves. She was agitated at times.’

  ‘But she wasn’t sick before she retired to her apartments. And she wasn’t there more than an hour or two. Tainted food doesn’t work so fast. She must have been overcome quickly. No one seems to have heard her call for assistance.’

  ‘You think she was poisoned in her room?’

  John ignored the question. ‘I intend to speak to everyone before I come to any conclusions. This Egyptian girl, with the dark hair and the high cheekbones. The gardener. You’ve taken an interest in her?’

  Anatolius was taken by surprise. ‘She is not only beautiful but extremely knowledgeable about plants, especially flowers and herbs.’

  ‘And what do they say at the court about poor, plain Anna, that there would always be dirt under her nails, if she didn’t keep them perpetually ragged with her gardening. So a slave with such knowledge was especially valuable to her.’

  ‘A slave? Yes. You’re right, John. But I can’t think of her as a slave. Catullus wrote about a flower that grows concealed in an enclosed garden. Unknown to the cattle, not bruised by any plough. Breezes caress it. The sun makes it strong.’

  ‘Many long for it.’ John finished the verse.

  A breeze from the open window overlooking the gardens in the inner courtyard caused Anatolius to blink and sniff.

  John smiled wanly. ‘Yes, my friend. I understand. And I understand why you would ask me here, because who is more skilled at poisoning than one who knows herbs?’

  In the courtyard, long evening shadows had moved across the face of the marble sundial, so that time could no longer be read from its lines of inlaid bronze. It was necessary therefore to tell time in the manner of the older empire, when the citizens of Rome had measured their days by the position of the sun over familiar columns, statues and walls. And although John was not so familiar with the house of Theodore as was Anatolius, who though by his side was deep in thought, it was easy enough to calculate that if the rays of the summer sun no longer reached over a three-story house, then the last measured hour of the day must have arrived, even if dusk had not completely fallen.