The temple attendants were useless, concerned only about the desecration in their shrine. A bunch of the Guards were pretending to be solicitous. I saw what they were up to. One of their number had done this, and they were starting to sense difficulties ahead. Most had fallen silent. Old centurions know what to do when things go wrong. They would be planning what let-out to claim, if there was an enquiry. Some approached, pretending to be helpful, offering to lift the lifeless young soldier and carry him outside.
On the verge of losing a man in his charge, Clemens went crazy. 'Leave him! Leave him to stabilise, you fools! Somebody get these murderous bastards out of the bloody way -'
I strode up. I let the Guards know from my voice how furious I was at having to sound reasonable. 'Just leave us to it now, lads. Better get lost. We were all on the same side, today. This was supposed to be a joint exercise – or hadn't anyone explained that?' Already displaying embarrassment, the Guards quickly decided to evacuate. Anacrites must have melted away from the scene ahead of them. . Kneeling by Lentullus, Clemens was still desperately trying to stanch the blood. He looked back over one shoulder, recognised me as I came to assess the problem, and yelled: 'Don't just stand there, Falco! Get some help – get a doctor!'
XLII
This mission was stuffed with doctors. I knew only one who might be close at hand. It was quickest to visit him. As soon as we could safely shoulder Lentullus, we rushed him to the vigiles. Their outstation was barely two streets away. Luckily, I had underestimated the Fourth Cohort's ability to recover from their Saturnalia drinks: a skeleton staff was on duty that night, and to my relief, one of them was Scythax, their morose doctor. He looked put out at the interruption, but he reacted quickly.
We lugged Lentullus in, and Scythax cleared a working space. A body was already on the table, but that was a dead man so he lost his place in the queue. The lads dumped the corpse outside in the exercise yard. At first we clustered round, but pretty soon Scythax shooed us out. He just kept Clemens to pass him equipment and take orders. 'Is there any hope?' 'Very little.' Scythax was a dour bastard. We sat in the yard, half of us on the cold ground, some on coils of rope. I tried both; they were equally uncomfortable. Fortunately Sentius – another dismal, peculiar type – turned up with our abandoned cloaks. Two were unaccounted for. On a headcount we realised Titus and Gaudus were missing. If they went down in the fight, nobody had seen it. We just had to hope they had fled in the confusion – perhaps with Justinus. We waited. Young soldiers spend a great deal of time sitting around while nothing much is happening – but that doesn't mean they are good at it. Bored, Lusius took a look at the corpse Scythax had had in his cubicle. Fresh meat, Lusius said. To ease my stiffness I straightened up, and strolled over for a professional appraisal. He was fresh all right. I had seen this man alive not much more than an hour ago. It was the vagrant from the Via Appia, the musical one with the limited repertoire. He still had his deplorable one-note pipe, twisted into an indescribably filthy string he had been using as a tunic belt.
There was no indication what killed him. Lusius and 1 rolled him. Nothing. Quietly 1 walked to the door of the medical cubicle.
Night had fallen hours ago, so the scene was lamp-lit; Clemens was holding a small pottery oil lamp, while the doctor carefully inserted a few animal-gut stitches to keep the flesh together on Lentullus' mangled thigh.
'How did this happen?' Scythax asked, between actions with the needle. He was no fine embroiderer. Nor was he confident at sewing; he liked a challenge, but his normal work was with bums and crush wounds. Vigiles who were cut in accidents ended up with very crooked scars.
'He tried attacking armed men when he didn't have a sword.' Clemens must have seen it occur. 'So he used his feet. He stamped them; they were not happy.' 'Drunks?' Scythax was supposing this had happened in a normal street fight. 'Oh no. They were sober.' Clemens kept it diplomatic, still not mentioning the Guards. 'You don't want to hear it, Scythax,' 1 added quietly from the doorway.
'Well I might have known – if you're involved, Falco.' Scythax stood up stiffly, put down the needle and flexed his fingers. Shadows 6.-om the lamp made his sallow oriental face look cadaverous, below an odd straight fringe he wore, as if he needed to keep his forehead warm or his brain would decay. He always spoke to me warily, as if he feared he was about to discover 1 was carrying a dread infectious disease. 'I will keep this man here; if he survives, it will be best not to move him.' He placed a soft pad over the damage, but bandaged it loosely. 1 guessed he would be needing access at 6.-equent intervals. His hands were gentle as he covered Lentullus with a coarse blanket. 'I have no remit to take in strangers – Rubella won't like this.' 'Understood.' Rubella never liked anything on principle. 'You'll have to provide someone to do the daily nursing. 1 have my own work, you know.' 'We are extremely grateful.' Clemens might be in his first posting as an officer, but he had already learned how to handle civilians. 'I'll stay,' I volunteered. I probably ought to try to find Helena, but she might do better without me. Anacrites would accommodate her with due regard for her father's position and her own known friendship with Titus Caesar. She would not thank me for interfering. That does not mean I was not worried about her. I told Clemens to send me a message when she turned up at home, then I dispatched him and the others to their beds.
I helped Scythax tidy up and clean away the blood. I saw him put opiates ready, but our boy was still deeply unconscious. We worked silently at first; I saw the doctor relaxing. Later we sat on stools with cups of hot mulsum that someone brought us from the night kitchen. I ventured to ask Scythax about the dead man he had had on his work table when we first showed up. 'I know a little about him, that's why I'm curious.' 'He is a vagrant,' answered Scythax, as if! could have missed that. Not likely; the smell of him was reaching us from right outside. 'I know. Almost certainly a runaway slave. Lives in a homeless men's commune out on the Via Appia.' 'Musical. Is he the flautist you've been asking after, Falco?'
'No. Too old, too limited in his range of tunes – and my flautist would be new to the streets. This dead fellow has been starving under bridges for years, by the look of him.' Scythax nodded. When he volunteered nothing more, I enquired how the body came to be here.
It took him a while to respond. Still, he knew I wasn't going away – and he also knew how friendly I was with Petronius. It was either answer me, or have Petro turn up tomorrow asking the questions, by then doubly suspicious. So he answered.
According to Scythax, the corpse had been dumped beside the patrol house gates. He said this happened from time to time. He assumed people hoped there was still life in the victim, and that he might help. The story sounded wrong. But I could think of no other reason a vigiles doctor would have fresh corpses served up to him. '''Victim''?' I asked coolly. 'That would be as in "unnatural death", would it?' 'You tell me, Falco. There seemed to be nothing to show.' Right. There was nothing to show why Scythax was so reticent either. But I heard voices outside, so I left it. The new arrivals were our missing men, Titus and Gaudus. With them was Justinus, intensely anxious about Lentullus. I sent the legionaries home. Scythax stood up and went out, as if leaving us in private; I still felt he was trying to avoid talking to me about that corpse. He still feared I would not let the matter go.