The Corpus Conundrum

by Albert A. Bell

  “This time of year, it can be,” Chloris said.

  Tacitus looked up at the wall of the building. “It shouldn’t be too hard to construct a roof over at least part of this patio. Maybe you could even fix up these rooms enough to rent them out.”

  “Excellent idea,” I said. “Some extra income. How would you ladies feel about having tenants?”

  “As long as they’re not whores,” Myrrha said.

  We heard noises from the front of the building, noises made by horses, vehicles, and a considerable number of people. “Hello! Anyone here?” a woman’s voice called.

  “That’s my mother.”

  I hurried—dry-shod, for the first time—through the alley and saw my raeda disgorging its passengers: my mother, Naomi, Blandina, and several other servant women, all dressed in older gowns and with their hair done up, clearly ready for some heavy work. Some of my men were riding behind them in our largest cart, holding tools they would need to finish the repairs on Myrrha’s and Chloris’ building. They were already drawing a crowd from the taverns.

  “There you are, Gaius,” Mother said. “I thought we would come and see what needs to be done here.”

  “I just asked for some help in cleaning the place up.”

  “With my guidance these women can do more of that by dinner time than you could do in the rest of the month.”

  I took her arm and led her across the street. “Mother,” I said quietly, “I thought you hated Myrrha and Chloris.”

  “Well, dear, Naomi told me a story of a harlot who helped to save the people of Israel. I guess these women were forced to do what they did. If we can help them get established here, perhaps they can make a new life for themselves.”

  She sounded like she was reciting lines she didn’t really believe. “Or perhaps they can sell the property and go somewhere else? Is that what you have in mind?”

  Mother blushed. “That might be the best thing for them. People in a small town like this can be so unforgiving. A fresh start in a new place would be wise—and if this business is fixed up and thriving, they can get more for it.”

  “And if they leave, some new whores will move in. In fact, some new ones will probably be in business by tomorrow.”

  “Yes, you men are like that, aren’t you, even the best of you?”

  I knew she was disappointed to have seen Chloris come out of my room the previous night. I wanted to say that Chloris came to me and that she intended to change her life, but it would be a pointless argument.

  “We’ll have to see what happens,” Mother said with a pat on my cheek. “For now let’s just do what we can for these women.”

  “You will eventually have to call them by name, you know. They are among our friends.”

  “I know, dear. Eventually. Let me take my time, please.” She put her hand on my arm. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Better, but still not entirely well.”

  “Are you still dizzy? You must have taken a harder blow on the head than we realized.”

  “I’m managing. My head is somewhat clearer than yesterday.”

  My servants were swarming over the cheese shop, the upstairs rooms, and the rooms in the back like ants, if I can indulge myself in a cliché. Work paused for a moment when my mother and I came up the stairs. She seemed to take a deep breath.

  “Are you going to try to save any of this furniture?” she asked.

  Myrrha shrugged. “Well, my lady, we don’t have nothin’ else.”

  “We’ll send you a couple of beds, tables, a chest or two. You can throw that out.” She pointed to Livilla’s table.

  Myrrha quickly stepped in front of the table. “That belonged to my mother. I’d like to keep it. Your son said he would have somebody repair the leg.”

  “All right, then. Aren’t there rooms downstairs? Let’s take a look at them and see what needs to be done. Naomi, I’ll leave you in charge up here.”

  With glances of bewilderment at me, Myrrha and Chloris followed my mother down the stairs. I hoped the smoke had covered the frescos that had served to advertise the services the two women offered.

  “You seem to have brought about a change of heart in my mother,” I said to Naomi.

  “She’s a good soul, my lord. Seeing a mother and daughter discover one another brought her to tears.”

  Oh, yes, the lost daughter she would never find again. “And how did it affect you?”

  “I was happy for them, my lord.” Naomi turned away to give instructions to the other servant women and then motioned for me to come to Livilla’s table.

  “Did you notice these marks, my lord?”

  “Yes. We thought they might be Jewish letters.”

  “They are, my lord.”

  “Can you read them?”

  “Certainly, my lord. My husband taught me to read while he was teaching our son. They’re not very well formed, but I can make them out.” She looked at the letters for several moments, muttering to herself as her face grew more and more puzzled.

  “Do you know what they say?”

  “I believe so, my lord. The problem is that they make no sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Each line is a quotation from one of our sacred books, called the Psalms. It’s a collection of poems and songs. But these lines are just snippets, taken at random from different poems.”

  “Try reading them aloud,” Tacitus suggested. “Sometimes the ear will hear what the eye fails to see.”

  Naomi read the lines, haltingly the first time, then with more confidence. But when she finished she shook her head. “I’m sorry, my lord. They still mean nothing to me.”

  But they did to me.

  “Can you translate them?” Tacitus asked.

  Naomi turned the lines into Greek. “They’re still nonsense, my lord, just random phrases.”

  “Read them once more in Hebrew,” I told her, “pausing at the end of each line.”

  I closed my eyes and listened as she read, and I knew I was right.

  XVII

  Clouds were gathering and threatened rain by the time we had Myrrha and Chloris settled into their new home upstairs. My servants even had time to give the large room a fresh coat of paint—just one color without any decoration, but it brightened the place considerably and covered the smoke stains. They also put a quick coat of paint over the erotic décor in the rooms where Myrrha and Chloris had plied their trade. My mother’s cheeks were still red from her visit down there.

  I decided to let Hylas practice on one of these walls before I turned him loose in my own house. Leaving two of my men to stand guard downstairs, the rest of us headed back to the house for a quick bath and a late supper.

  “You might want to post guards there for a few days,” Tacitus said as we rode along at the head of a little caravan, “just to convince Scaevola you mean to protect those women and their property.”

  “I could do that. Or I could tell him who killed his nephew.”

  Tacitus turned to look at me so quickly he almost lost his balance on his horse. “You know? How—?”

  “Keep your voice down. I’ll tell you when I can be sure we’re alone. Someone in my house must be passing information to Scaevola.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He could not have known we had found Aristeas unless someone told him.”

  “You had your servants out looking for the man after he disappeared, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of them could have run into someone from a neighboring estate and told them what he was doing, with no intention of betraying you. In fact, he would have to tell them: ‘I’m looking for a fellow about this tall, with a skinny beard’.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “You don’t need to be so mistrustful, Gaius Pliny. Cautious and aware, yes, but not so mistrustful. You’ll be seeing an enemy behind every tree. And you’ve got lots of trees out here.”

  I knew Tacitus was right. I could worr
y myself sick.

  But Tacitus hadn’t read Aurora’s note.

  The rain started as we were finishing supper. Tacitus and I retired to my suite of rooms. The alcove which is my favorite part of the suite contains a couch and two chairs. During the day someone reclining on the couch has the sea at his feet, the villa behind him, and the woods at his head. Tonight, though, we each took a chair and had the windows closed against the weather. The lamps reflecting off the glass made the room glow. The distortions created by the waves in the glass made the world outside look like it was constantly shifting and changing, an impression heightened by the way my head still felt.

  “Now, you must tell me,” Tacitus said. “Who killed Scaevola’s nephew and how do you know? How can you know, fifteen years after the fact?”

  “You were the one who gave me the final piece of the puzzle,” I said, just to torment him, and he was suitably tortured.

  “How did I do that?”

  “You said the ear hears what the eye often misses, and that’s certainly true in this case.”

  “Does this have something to do with what Naomi read?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “But she said it made no sense. The lines were random snippets from a collection of poems. Are you going to be like one of those fortune-tellers who picks lines from the Aeneid and predicts your future with them?”

  “No, it’s nothing so fanciful as that. The lines were, in fact, snippets, but they weren’t picked randomly. They were chosen for the sound of their first letters.”

  “What?”

  “The lines formed an acrostic. I heard it when Naomi read them aloud. I can’t pronounce the words, but the first sound in each line, in Hebrew, was S, T, R, A, B, O.”

  “By the gods! Licinius Strabo killed Macer, his own cousin?”

  “That’s what Livilla was telling us.”

  Tacitus put a hand to his forehead and appeared deep in thought. When he looked up, he said, “But she didn’t say she saw Strabo kill Macer. She said she saw him put the body in Myrrha’s room, presumably in an effort to make her look guilty.”

  “How would he get Macer’s body unless he killed him?”

  “Granted.” Tacitus still didn’t sound entirely convinced. “But why would Strabo kill his cousin? And does it have anything to do with Aristeas’ murder?”

  I poured myself a little more wine. “Right now I can’t answer either of those questions, but I intend to, within a day or two, I hope.”

  “Those aren’t the only questions we need to answer, my friend.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear any more.” I rested my spinning head on my hands.

  “You’re convinced the two murders—Macer and Aristeas—were committed by the same person—Strabo. How could he move one dead body, let alone two, through the streets of Laurentum in daylight without drawing attention? Even if his family runs the place, a man lugging a corpse around would set tongues to wagging. And who did he get to help him take the women to somebody’s house? And whose house?” Tacitus raised his cup. “It is a pretty complicated plot.”

  “And Strabo doesn’t impress me as a strategic genius.”

  “His father doesn’t think so, and who would know him better?”

  I slapped the arm of my chair. “It had to be a simple plan. Both men must have been killed near Saturninus’ building.”

  “The building behind Saturninus’, on the other side of the aqueduct, would be a likely spot,” Tacitus said. “Then he’d just have to haul the body a short distance.”

  “I wish Livilla had told us a little more. From what direction did Strabo bring Macer’s body? Women make such poor witnesses. They’re too emotional.”

  Tacitus nodded. “A dead eyewitness, male or female, is certainly inconvenient. To be honest with you, on the basis of her ‘testimony’ and a few Jewish letters scribbled on the bottom of a table, I would never vote to convict Strabo.”

  “Nor would I.” I rubbed my chin. “I wonder if we could get into that building and look around. It’s deserted, isn’t it?”

  “It looked like it was a block of apartments, but I saw no sign of anyone in it while we were fighting the fire. No lights, no one hanging out a window to watch.”

  “When we go up there tomorrow morning to take some furniture, let’s see if we can get in.”

  “What would we be looking for?”

  “A place where a man could be strung up by his feet—a beam, a rafter.”

  “And you really think both of these murders are connected, with fifteen years between them?”

  “This is a very small town. When two men both have their throats slashed and end up in the same woman’s bed, I don’t care how many years passed in between. There has to be a connection.”

  “Will we be having another pig roast to prove your point?”

  The next morning the rain had stopped, but the sky looked like it could open up again at any moment. An acrid smell of burned and soaked wood hung heavily over the estate. Aristeas’ pyre and the pile of wood on which we had roasted the pig were finally completely out. I gave orders for the two piles to be raked and spread out and, once we were certain there were no live embers left, for the ashes to be scattered in the woods.

  Naomi was supervising the loading into a cart of pieces of furniture to be taken to Myrrha and Chloris. I remembered that I still had Saturninus’ cheese-slicer in my room. In spite of the most minute examination I could give it, I had not been able to find traces of anything on it except cheese. When I returned from fetching it, Naomi was putting a cover over the furniture.

  “Isn’t my mother going?” I asked.

  “She decided to stay home today, my lord.”

  Probably just as well, I thought. She had been civil, even generous, to the women yesterday; but it was clear she was forcing herself, and she made them nervous. I knew she wouldn’t go in the downstairs rooms again until she was sure they’d been painted. Overall, it would be better to let the three women get used to one another in their new relationship gradually.

  “Have you seen Tacitus this morning?”

  “He left a note pinned to his door, my lord, saying he would prefer not to be disturbed. He will join you later.”

  “As gloomy as this day is, he has the right idea. Well, then, I guess we’d better get moving. Are you coming, Naomi?”

  As soon as I said it, I knew I should have given her an order instead of asking a question. If I wasn’t careful, she would soon be calling me Gaius.

  “I would like to, my lord.”

  “Good. Things certainly went faster yesterday with your supervision.” Watching her give orders to the other women, I had realized she was becoming a sort of female steward in my household.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Our little caravan made up of the raeda, the cart, and several people on horseback must have been familiar to our neighbors by now. When we reached Laurentum I was pleased to see two women coming out of the cheese shop carrying bundles. If the women of the village would accept Myrrha and Chloris as the proprietors of the place, they stood a good chance of making a success of it. The men I’d left on guard overnight reported no signs of trouble.

  We got the furniture unloaded and I returned the cheese slicer and the original copy of Saturninus’ will. “I’ve added my testimony and my seal to this. Hylas made a copy, which we’ll keep at my house, in case there’s ever a need for it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Myrrha said, choking back emotion.

  “It looks like things are going well,” I said.

  “Yes, sir.” She wiped her apron over her face. “My father had a good supply of several cheeses laid up, so we’ve got some time to figure out what we’re doin’. When I was a girl he showed me most of what I need to know, but that was a while back.”

  My mother had emptied a couple of our bedrooms and sent the furniture up to Myrrha and Chloris. They couldn’t use the bedding from their old rooms because it smelled so strongly of smoke and h
eld such memories of their lives down there, including the bodies of two dead men in Myrrha’s bed. My servants moved in two beds with the bedding, several chests, and a small table. It wasn’t our best stuff, but it was substantial and better than anything these women had before.

  As we arranged the furniture I looked out the back windows, thinking about how Livilla sat here and watched her granddaughter play. Between the leaky aqueduct and the abandoned building beyond, it wasn’t a cheerful place.

  “Who owns that old building on the other side of the aqueduct?” I asked Myrrha.

  “That belongs to the Licinius clan, sir. In fact, ours is the only buildin’ in this block that don’t belong to ’em. They pestered my father for years about buyin’ it. I think they had some plan about buildin’ a bigger bath, but the town’s so run-down now I don’t know why they’d bother.”

  “If they put pressure on you to sell—if they say anything that even feels like a threat toward you—let me know immediately.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will.”

  I sent my people home with a message to Tacitus not to bother coming. “I’ll be home shortly,” I assured Naomi.

  When my servants were gone and Myrrha was downstairs, Chloris hugged and kissed me, with a different emphasis than her mother had. “Thank you again, sir. You’ve given us a chance to make a new life.”

  “I know you want to make things better for your mother and yourself. I hope you have the strength to do so.”

  “I take to heart what Aristotle said. If we act like good people, we can become good people.”

  I’m afraid my eyebrows rose too high and too quickly.

  “Do you find it so remarkable that I’ve read Aristotle?” She stepped back from me. “Your uncle got me a very good tutor.”

  “Not at all. But I think you’ve just given me an important clue to understanding what’s been happening around here the last few days.”

  I led my horse into the courtyard behind Saturninus’—no, Myrrha’s and Chloris’—cheese shop and tied him up in the driest spot I could find. “I won’t be long,” I assured him.

  The only entrance on the back of the old apartment building was firmly boarded up, as were the windows on the ground floor. I didn’t know what the place had looked like fifteen years ago, but if Strabo killed Aristeas a few days ago, he did not bring his body out this door. The top floor windows were shuttered, except where the shutters had broken in places.