‘Don’t ask me whose it is,’ the man said, anticipating my question. ‘His wife has got one very like it, it seems, but this one isn’t hers. She’s got that safe and sound in a casket in her room — first thing she did when she saw him was go and look for it. And there’s another funny thing. You see those feathers?’ He pointed to a handful of them, lying in an open wooden bowl nearby. ‘Found those when we came to wash the body. There’s the pillow, there. It had been pushed down so firmly over him that the silk split at the stitching. We didn’t know what to do with it all exactly, so we’ve put the things here to burn them with the funeral offerings later.’
‘I will take the necklace with me. It may help in my enquiries,’ I said, rolling it up again and slipping it into the folds of my toga. The undertaker did not protest. If anything, I think he was glad to be relieved of the responsibility. I nodded in what I hoped was a suitably thoughtful manner. ‘And the knife?’
‘That was apparently Caius Monnius’ own, citizen.’ He showed me where they had placed it, carefully, with the rest of the dead man’s personal belongings. It was a fine knife: a sharp blade set in an elaborately carved horn handle — the kind that wealthy people often carry at their belts, especially at large banquets where there are rarely enough knives for all the guests. I carry a knife myself, though mine is a more humble article: if you rely on the scissor — the slave who cuts up the meat — you often have a long wait for his services.
I examined the knife. ‘I see you have cleaned the blade,’ I said.
‘It did not seem respectful, citizen, to leave it as it was. It will be offered as one of the grave-goods to be cremated with him. He left instructions with us long ago, when he ordered his memorial stone. His knife, that household statue of himself, and a mobius, the official corn-measure, as a symbol of his office.’ He peered anxiously at my face. ‘I hope we have not done wrong, there, citizen? After all, the knife was actually not used to kill anyone, and it was not like the necklace. It just required wiping, sharpening and polishing with red earth.’
So there was nothing to be learned from the knife either, except that it was Monnius’ own, and had presumably been in his room the night before. That explained how the killer had picked it up — I had wondered earlier why Fulvia’s attacker had not simply used the chain again. But my inspection of the body had answered that question at least. The necklace had bitten so deeply into Monnius’ fleshy neck that it would have been well-nigh impossible to remove it again, in darkness and in a hurry.
I nodded. ‘Very well, your people may carry on here. I have seen all that it is possible to see.’ I turned to go.
The chief undertaker came after me, smiling ingratiatingly. ‘I hope we have been of some assistance, citizen? They tell me you were sent here by the governor?’
The man wanted a tip, I realised. I fished into my purse again and parted with another five as coin. It was a large sum to me, but he did not look any more delighted with my bounty than Superbus had done. I began to hope that I would not have occasion to reward many more servants in Londinium. I have only a modest income, and giving gratuities in this city was clearly a very expensive business.
I summoned Junio, who had been waiting in the corridor, and was about to make a dignified exit when we were all interrupted by a disturbance in the street. Somebody was shouting.
I abandoned all pretence at restraint and went to the window-space to listen.
‘What means these words, Caius Monnius is dead? I do not believe this telling. He was yesterday perfectly well. This is some plotting of his to avoid to see me.’ The angry man — whoever he was — had hesitant Latin. His meaning, however, was abundantly clear to anyone for half a mile around. I longed to climb the ladder in the courtyard and peer over the wall into the street, but dignity forbade it.
Someone, clearly, was trying to calm the outburst. There were muffled voices for a moment, and then the tirade began again.
‘Well, you listen me, my friend. You tell your master, is he alive or dead, that Eppaticus Tertius is arrived to see him. And if Eppaticus does not see somebody very soon, then Eppaticus will take his matters to the court. Twenty thousand sesterces, he owes to me, and he promised me today.’
More apologetic muttering. The doorkeeper evidently.
‘No, I will not make less loud my voice. All Londinium can know these things. And the other things will I tell, that Caius Monnius wishes I should hide — those things I will shout from the steps of the forum, if I do not have my money in my hand today. Now, stand back and let me see him, or by all the gods of the river, you will be the one which is dead.’
There was a scuffle, a shout, a bang and a groan. I glanced at Junio, and a moment later the two of us were hastening back towards the atrium the way we had come. Eppaticus, however, was too quick for us.
We met him coming towards us, in one of the interconnecting rooms. He was a huge man in a plaid cape, with shoulders like an ox and a red bull face under a thatch of light brown hair. In one great hand he had hoisted the unfortunate doorkeeper by the neck of his tunic, and was half carrying, half pushing him along; while with the other (which seemed the size of a fire-flail) he brushed aside the two burly household slaves who tried to detain him, as though they were no more than a pair of troublesome sheep.
He was still bellowing. ‘Dead, you say he is? Then you will show me him. Dead or alive, I will see Caius Monnius.’
‘Ask this citizen,’ the doorkeeper squawked, his toes scarcely touching the ground as he was thrust along. ‘He is an emissary from the governor.’
Eppaticus stopped, looking me over from haircut to toga hem. ‘So? Another Roman? What the governor wishes in this house? What things that cheating Caius Monnius had told against me?’ He was working himself up into a rage again, and for a moment it looked as if he might forget himself, and lay violent hands on me.
‘I am a Celt, like yourself,’ I said, speaking in my native tongue. ‘And they are telling you the truth, Eppaticus. The man is dead. They are even now preparing him for his funeral.’
He put down the doorkeeper, and stared consideringly at me. As he turned his head I saw with surprise that he wore his hair in an old-fashioned Celtic pigtail at the back, although his forehead was not shaved as it would have been in my own tribe, and he lacked the long waxed moustache that would have suggested noble descent. His dress, too, was a mixture of traditions. He wore a Roman-style tunic, rather than trousers, under his Celtic plaid.
He was gazing at me with suspicion, but he replied in the same language. ‘You are not from these parts, citizen? Your dialect is strange to me.’
‘As yours to me,’ I said. It was true. It was almost as difficult for me to comprehend his barbarous Celtic accent as to follow his fractured Latin. Nevertheless, the discovery that I was a fellow countryman had some effect. It had stopped the furious bull in his stampede and I hoped it forged a kind of fragile bond between us, though he was obviously still extremely wary of me. The tribes of Britain have often nurtured worse enmities between themselves than were ever felt for our conquerors.
I said to reassure him, ‘I am from the farthest south-west corner of Britannia.’ That, I hoped, was safe. Tribal tension is always greatest between immediate neighbours.
Eppaticus nodded his huge head slowly. ‘And I am Trinovantine.’
I had heard of them. One of the most warlike and quarrelsome tribes in the country: at one time, they had even joined forces with the Iceni to revolt against Roman rule. Of course, that was more than a century ago, and old scores had been officially forgotten — at least in public — but men still spoke in whispers of the terrible revenge which the Romans had inflicted on the warrior queen Boudicca and her daughters, and the razing of the cities (including Londinium) which had supported the rebels. I imagine that the Trinovantes have little love for a toga.