Petronius cursed this development. He said the vigiles already had their hands full, without beatings on every street corner. Saturnalia meant a big increase in fires, due to the enormous number of festive lamps in feckless homes. There were fights everywhere, arising from friends and family fall-outs, even before this new rash of anti-barbarian feeling. Petro was glad that the vigiles could at least stop the searches he had set in hand for me; I asked him to tell the cohort commanders this was because of poor results, without mentioning that I had in fact found Veleda. I wanted to avoid bounty hunters turning up at my house. 'Quite right!' exclaimed Petronius, managing to imply I was a bounty hunter myself Still seeking to distract him, I asked if the vigiles searchers had come across anything unusual to do with dead vagrants. He gave me a sideways look, but slowly admitted there might be a problem. 'We have been aware of an increased unclaimed-corpse count for some time.' 'Does Scythax know about it? Or is he somehow mixed up in it?' 'Of course not. Crazy suggestion, Falco.' 'Hear my words: he had a very fresh cadaver of a runaway slave laid out on his workbench when we took in Lentullus. According to Scythax, someone dumps them outside the patrol house, but that story sounds fishy.' 'Reminds me: my tribune wants you to shift Lentullus off our premises. ' 'Tell Rubella to stuff a festive garland where it hurts. And answer my question, please.'
Petronius shrugged and admitted there had always been a high death rate among the homeless, as long as he had been in the vigiles. Recently numbers had increased; they blamed the winter weather. 'So why does your doctor involve himself?' Petro looked shifty, so I kept probing until he stopped wriggling and owned up feebly, 'Scythax takes an interest in why the vagrants die.' 'An interest – how?' 'I believe,' said Petronius, looking shy, 'he has been known to dissect the corpses.' I presumed that information had to be kept confidential. 'Using the dead for autopsies is illegal, I'm told.' 'Too right, it is! We don't want unnatural practices in backstreet morgues. ' 'No, much better to have them right in your patrol house!'
On my promise of discretion, Petronius said what I already knew, that Scythax was occasionally allowed to take away the corpses of criminals who died in the arena – so long as he carried out any scientific research in his spare time and it was all kept quiet. The excuse was that what Scythax learned could help the army repair wounded soldiers. In any case, post-mortems only happened when the executed criminals had no family to complain, and when Scythax could pay enough bribes to sweeten the arena staff.
'So when his supply from the arena dwindles, he encourages the dumping of dead runaways on your doorstep. Does he advertise this service? Jupiter, Petro, does he buy the bodies? And if so – you need to think about this – is somebody killing off vagrants deliberately for Scythax?' Petronius Longus sat bolt upright. 'Nuts, Falco. Scythax would never countenance that. Besides, there are far too many runaway slaves being found dead!' 'So it's really a problem? You think you have a serial killer?' 'I think it's possible.' 'Because the targets are vagrants, does nobody care?' 'I care, Marcus.' All this time, Veleda had been sitting quiet, listening to us pretty blank-faced. She had a basket chair, like the one Petronius had commandeered, and was wrapped in shawls, with her feet on a small footstool. Had she had a wool basket at her feet, a child on her chair arm and a pet bird in her lap, she could have been a classic Roman matron. You might say she was too blonde – but a lot of married women I knew had turned mysteriously golden-haired, once they got their hands on their husband's income.
The intent way she was listening to us had attracted my attention. I doubted she was merely entranced by our talented oratory. 'Veleda, you went out on the medication run from the Temple of Жsculapius. They find a lot of these bodies. Anything you can tell us about it?'
'Did she?' exploded Petronius. Assuming he was upset at the thought of her wandering loose on the streets that his cohort patrolled, I ignored him. 'I never saw anything like that.' Veleda disappointed me. Even if she had seen something, gratitude to the temple kept her silent. I decided it was time to pick up my original intention and tackle her about the death of Scaeva. Petronius Longus crossed his booted feet on a low table, linked his hands behind his head, and watched me proceed. His stare was supposed to unnerve me. I had known him a long time and just ignored his attitude.
I explained to Veleda that one reason I had agreed to Helena's suggestion and let her come to my house was that I hoped to use this period before I handed her over to justice – whoops, took her back to the authorities – in an attempt to discover what had really happened at the Quadrumatus house. If she was innocent of beheading Scaeva, I proposed to clear her. She seemed less impressed by this handsome offer than I thought she should have been. Maybe when you are already indicted for the deaths of thousands of Roman soldiers, one more murder makes little difference on the charge sheet. 'I like to know the truth, V eleda.' 'I remember.' She should do. I had, after all, once trekked for days to ask her, amongst other things, about the fate of a kidnapped army legate. It was nearly ten years now since that man disappeared in Germany, but if ever relationships became too friendly with this woman, what happened to the legate ought to be remembered. Veleda had not killed him (in her version), nor even ordered his appalling death by drowning while trussed up and pressed under a hurdle in a bog. Still, the devoted tribes who followed her had thought a kidnapped Roman army commander was a suitable 'gift' to send to her. Whether they expected her to eat him, rape him, kill him herself, or keep him on a perch in a golden cage and teach him to tweet nursery rhymes had never been entirely clear, but it was certain that even if his fickle captors had not finished him off before he ever reached her, Veleda herself would have sacrificed the legate to her gods and stacked his bones in the kind of shoulder-high ossuary that I and my companions saw in the forest. That was what this woman now sitting quietly in my home had once been. Perhaps she still was. In fact, since she showed no sign of repentance, make that 'perhaps' a 'probably'.
'You told me that you did not kill Scaeva.' Five years ago Veleda had assured me she did not kill the legate either; she may have been lying. She certainly was responsible for his death, through firing up her followers' bloodlust. She could be lying about Scaeva. 'Do you know who did kill him? Or why?' 'No.' 'Were you there when he died?' 'No.' 'But you saw his severed head lying in the atrium pool?' Perhaps Veleda hesitated. Petronius certainly winced as he imagined it. 'I did not see the head, Falco.' At my irritated growl, Veleda added quickly, 'I never passed through the atrium that day; I left by way of a tradesmen's exit on the side of the house. But I knew that Scaeva's head was there. Ganna had seen it. She ran and told me.
This did not fit the facts Ganna had fed to me. I wondered if, in some way I had yet to discover, Ganna was trying to protect the priestess.
'So tell us,' Petronius leaned forward with his 'trust me' look. 'What exactly happened on that afternoon. Let's start with why your – maid, is she? -' 'Acolyte,' I said tersely. 'Oh nice! We'll start with why your acolyte was walking thorough the atrium, shall we?'
Veleda told him without arguing: 'I had some letters that 1 could not read.' That was good. Whatever mad, romantic pleas Justinus had made, Veleda had never been able to read them. Excellent. 'At first 1 did not want to read them -' Even better. This was too important for scoring points, but Petro did enjoy a smirk at me over the way she was confiding in him. 'I became so unhappy 1 changed my mind. The only person we could trust there was the man who had delivered the letters to me: Scaeva. 1 was constantly being watched – that terrible old woman who attended on Drusilla Gratiana -' 'Phryne.' 1 scored no points for sounding knowledgeable. 'Phryne, of course. Phryne had always made it clear she hated me. She knew every move 1 made. So Ganna was going to ask Scaeva what the letters said.' 'She never managed it?' asked Petro. Veleda shook her head. Now the story went that Ganna only made it as far as the atrium that afternoon; she saw the head, then raced back – with the letters to inform Veleda of the murder. They realised at once that blame would be piled on the priestess, so with no chance for further conversation, Veleda made her escape in the laundry cart.