But we met no one on the stairs, and the upstairs hall was deserted. From somewhere below we could hear the muffled music of flutes and lyres, and an occasional burst of applause or laughter — presumably in appreciation of Sorex's dance — but the upper floor was dim and quiet. The hallway was quite broad and fabulously decorated, opening onto wide, high rooms even more sumptuously appointed. Every surface seemed to be carpeted, draped, inlaid, or painted. Everywhere the eye turned there was a riot of colours, textures, and shapes.
'Vulgar, isn't it?' said Rufus with a noble's disdain. Cicero would have agreed, but the furnishings were vulgar only for being so cramped and ostentatiously displayed. What impressed me most was the consistency of Chrysogonus's taste in acquiring only the
best and most expensive handicraft and artwork — embossed silver, vessels of Delian and Corinthian bronze, embroidered coverlets, plush carpets from the East, finely carved tables and chairs with inlays of shell and lapis, intricate mosaics of richly coloured tiles, superb marble statues and fabulous paintings. That all these creations had been looted from the proscribed there could be no doubt; otherwise it would have taken a lifetime to accumulate so many things of such high quality and disparate origin. Yet no one could say that Chrysogonus had looted blindly. Let others take the chaff; for himself he had chosen only the best, with the trained eye for quality developed by slaves of the rich who dream of someday being free and rich themselves. I was glad that Cicero was not with us; to see Sulla's former slave living in stolen luxury on such a grandiose scale might have agitated his delicate bowels beyond endurance.
The hallway narrowed. The rooms became less resplendent. The girl lifted a heavy hanging, allowing us to pass beneath; she dropped it, and all sound from downstairs vanished. The world changed as well, and we were abruptly back in a house of plain plastered walls and smoke-stained ceilings. These were the rooms of necessity — storage chambers, slave quarters, work rooms — yet even here the booty was piled high. Crates of bronze vessels were stacked in the corners, rolled carpets drooped like sleepy watchmen against the walls, chairs and tables were wrapped in heavy cloth and piled to the ceiling.
The girl stole through the maze, glanced furtively about her, then motioned for us to follow. She drew back a curtain.
'What are you doing up here?' asked a petulant voice. 'Isn't there a party on tonight?'
'Oh, leave her alone,' said another, speaking through a mouthful of food. 'Just because Aufilia brings me extra portions and turns her nose up at your ugly face. . but who's this?'
'No,' I said, 'don't get up. Stay where you are. Finish your meal.'
The two of them sat on the hard floor, eating cabbage and barley from cracked clay bowls by the light of a single lamp. The room was small and narrow with bare walls; the tiny flame carved their wrinkles into caverns and cast their stooped shadows all the way to the ceiling. I stayed in the doorway. Tiro moved in close behind me, peering over my shoulder. Rufus hung behind.
The lean, petulant one snorted and scowled at his food. 'For what you want, Aufilia, this room's too small. Can't you find an empty room elsewhere with a couch big enough for the three of you?'
'Felix!' the other hissed, prodding his companion with his pudgy elbow and gesturing with the other. Felix glanced up and blanched as he noticed the ring on my finger. He had thought the three of us were all slaves, looking for a place to have a party of our own.
'Forgive me, Citizen,' he whispered, bowing his head. They fell silent, waiting for me to speak. Before, they had been human beings, one of them lean and irritable, the other fat and good-natured, their faces alive in the warm glow as they fed themselves and parried with the girl. In an instant I saw them turn grey and distinguishable, wearing the identical blank face worn by every slave of every harsh master who ever breathed in Rome.
'Look at me,' I said. 'Look at me! And if you aren't going to finish eating, then put down your bowls and stand up, so that I can see you eye to eye. We don't have much time.'
'The knife was out before you could see it,' Felix was saying. 'In a flash.'
‘Yes, literally in a flash!' Chrestus stood beside him, nervously rubbing his pudgy hands, looking from his friend's face to mine and back again.
Once I had explained who I was and what I wanted, they were amazingly willing, even eager, to speak to me. Tiro stood quietly beside me, his face pensive in the lamplight. I had posted Rufus at the nearest chamber along the main hallway so that he might turn back any wandering guests. I sent the girl with him; she was his excuse for loitering upstairs, and besides that, there was no reason to involve her any deeper, or to trust her with the full truth of what we had come for.
‘We never had a chance to help the master. They threw us out of the way, onto the ground,' said Felix. 'Strong men, as big as horses.'
'And stinking of garlic,' Chrestus added. 'They'd have killed us, too, if Magnus hadn't stopped them.' 'Then you're sure it was Magnus?'I said.
'Oh, yes.' Felix shuddered. 'I didn't see his face, he was careful about that. But I heard his voice.'
'And the master called his name, remember, just before Magnus stabbed him the first time,' said Chrestus. ' "Magnus, Magnus, curse you!" in a thin little voice. I still hear it in my dreams.'
Felix pursed his thin lips. 'Ah, yes, you're right. I'd forgotten that.'
'And the other two assassins?' I asked.
They shrugged in unison. 'One of them might have been Mallius Glaucia, though I can't be certain,' said Felix. 'The other man had a beard, I remember.'
'A red beard?'
'Perhaps. Hard to tell in that light. Even bigger than Glaucia and he stank of garlic'
'Redbeard,' I muttered. 'And how was it that Magnus stopped them from killing you?'
'He forbade it. "Stop, you fools!'" growled Chrestus, as if playing a role. ' "They're valuable slaves. Damage either one and it comes out of your wages!" Valuable, he called us — and look where we end up, oiling sandals and burnishing Master Golden-Born's chamber pots.'
'But of value nonetheless,' I said. 'As if Magnus planned to inherit you himself'
'Oh, yes.' Felix nodded. 'That must have been part of the plan all along, that he and Capito would somehow get their hands on the master's goods. Who can imagine how they did it? And now we end up back in the city, except that we never see the city. The Golden One keeps us trapped in these stuffy rooms day and night. You'd think we were being punished. Or hidden away, the same as he hides half his loot away. What kind of coincidence is it, I ask you, that I can look around these very rooms and see so many things that came directly from the master's old house by the Circus? Those chairs you saw stacked out there, and the yellow vase in the hallway, and the Alexandrian tapestry rolled up there in the corner — they all belonged to the master before he was murdered. No, we're not the only property that ended up in Chrysogonus's hands.'
Chrestus nodded in agreement.
'The night of the murder,' I said, trying to draw them back. 'You were thrown aside, saved by a word from Magnus, and then you disappeared. Vanished into the night without a shout or a scream for help — don't deny it, I have a witness who swears to it.'
Felix shook his head. 'I don't know what sort of witness you may have, but we didn't run away, not exactly. We ran down the street a way and then stopped. Chrestus would have kept running, but I held him back.'
Chrestus looked crestfallen. 'That's true,' he said.
'We stood in the dark and watched them do it. What a fine man he was! What a fine Roman! A slave couldn't ask for a better master. Never once in thirty years did he beat me, never once! How many slaves can say that?'