‘See what?’ I said, although I had a sinking feeling that I knew.
Aulus gestured towards the waiting men, and I saw for the first time that there was an extra horse. It was tethered to a tree, with something long and heavy strapped across the saddle, something roughly wrapped in hessian but still dripping from either end.
I strode towards it, trying to look as much like Marcus’ agent as I could, dressed as I was in a simple tunic, with dirty straw in my hair. ‘Let me see it,’ I said, imperiously. ‘I am a citizen.’
The soldiers looked at one another doubtfully.
‘On Marcus’ orders,’ I said. That worked. The soldier who had escorted me stepped forward and pulled away the wet, coarse cloth.
It was a man, or it had been a man, once. The head and hands dangled gracelessly downwards, the legs hung limp and awkward in death.
‘Found him in the river,’ the soldier said, grasping the short, curly hair and lifting the head upwards to reveal the face. ‘The armour would have pulled him down anyway, but the cloak was weighted with stones. We would not have found him if we had not been ordered to search. I don’t know if it is the man you want — the rats have been at him as it is.’
The water-swollen face was too gnawed to recognise, but I moved forward and, slipping my hand under the arming-doublet and the scaled tunic, I found what I sought. I brought out the chain, and read aloud the inscription on the tag. ‘“If found, return to Crassus Claudius Germanicus, for this is a fugitive slave.” This is the man.’
‘I am sorry, pavement maker,’ the soldier said. ‘We did not look for name-fetters. He seemed to be a soldier, not a slave. He has no helmet, though he might have worn one once. The currents there are fierce. No weapon either.’
‘There was a dagger at least,’ I said. ‘In his back.’ It did not need me to say so; the dreadful bloodied rents told their own story. This man had been stabbed in the back, several times from the look of it, and thrown into the river afterwards.
‘He was robbed, too,’ the soldier said. ‘See where the purse has been cut from the thong? Strange, it seems to have been a civilian pouch, slung underneath the scale-shirt. That is awkward to manage. A soldier usually wears his purse under the wristpad on his arm.’
Junio was beside me, and he looked at me, his eyes shining. ‘So,’ he said, ‘that is why Daedalus did not return. It might be, then, as I suggested.’
I silenced him with an eyebrow. ‘We shall see. But look, here comes Marcus now, and Andretha with him. And still unshaved. That will not please him.’
But Marcus was, in fact, looking extremely pleased with himself. ‘Ah, Libertus, my old friend. There you are. I have been hoping to speak with you.’
I had kept him waiting. He was in good humour, but it was not wise. I said, hastily, ‘Humblest apologies, excellence. I was delayed about your business. These men have made an important discovery. They have found Daedalus.’
Andretha, who had been bobbing like a salmon in his wake, followed my gaze and let out a stifled sound. ‘Dead?’
‘And robbed,’ I said, and watched his face turn whiter. Junio did well, I thought, to suspect Andretha, but the steward had not known that Daedalus was dead, I was sure of that.
I do not know what I was expecting Marcus to do. Thank the soldiers, perhaps. Be surprised. Be interested at least.
In fact he gave a cursory glance at the lifeless bundle. ‘They have done well,’ he said, ‘but it hardly matters now. The man was only a slave. As well for him he was not found alive, impersonating a soldier. But since he is dead already, he is beyond our power.’
‘But excellence,’ I said, ‘the question of Germanicus. .’
He interrupted me, holding up his hand with an air of lofty indulgence. ‘Ah, yes, the murder of Germanicus,’ he said. ‘You have done your best for me, as usual. But this time, it seems, my methods are superior to yours. The matter is resolved.’
‘Resolved?’
‘Indeed.’ Marcus tried, and failed, to keep the triumph from his smile. ‘While you were out this morning. Rufus has confessed.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Rufus?’ I must have sounded as startled as I felt. Rufus, the scrupulously truthful! It was the last thing I was expecting.
Marcus looked smug. ‘I had Andretha announce this morning that if anyone named the culprit I would grant unconditional pardon to the rest of the household. I thought it might sharpen Andretha’s memory, but I need not have worried. Rufus came to me almost immediately and confessed. I had him locked in the librarium.’
‘The librarium?’ I echoed, and heard Marcus sigh. I was beginning to sound like a schoolboy practising rhetorical intonation. I resolved to stop repeating everything he said, and tried to look more intelligent than I felt.
There was a punishment cell, elsewhere, Marcus explained, but he had ordered this as a temporary measure. Rufus was to be taken back to Glevum in chains. ‘Crassus was a veteran and a citizen, after all,’ Marcus said, almost gleefully, ‘and there is always a shortage of convicted criminals for the entertainments.’
It would be a pity to waste the opportunity for winning popular acclaim, he meant, by simply bringing in the torturer to flog Rufus to death. There would doubtless be a hearing, of sorts, before he was thrown to the wolves and bears.
I nodded. ‘May I talk to him?’
Marcus looked reluctant. ‘Is that necessary, now? The matter is settled, and I am anxious to get back to Glevum,’ he said fretfully. ‘There is the matter of the sale of the villa to be negotiated. I may offer for it myself, and Lucius will have to be consulted.’
The question of the murder was settled to his satisfaction, perhaps. I was not so sure. I thought quickly. ‘Surely, excellence, he should be consulted about Rufus, too? After all he is the owner of him now. He should at least be informed.’
Marcus frowned. I was afraid for a moment that I had overstepped myself, but he gave a rueful smile. ‘True!’ he said, smacking his palm with his baton in that characteristic way which showed his irritation. ‘Oh, Mercury! I had overlooked that fact. Though Lucius is a Christian; they have these sympathetic ideals. He will be unlikely to object to my amnesty. As the nearest relative he might even apply to deal with the boy himself, flog him and have him sent to the mines, perhaps, or trained up as a gladiator instead of going straight to the arena. All right, Libertus, you speak to Rufus. Persuade him not to appeal to his new master. Persuade him that the bears would be a better fate.’
It might even be true, I thought. The beasts were savage, but they were quick. A sentence to the mines would mean a lingering brutal death, especially for a lightly built musician of Rufus’ sensibility. Even with the gladiators there might also, given Rufus’ girlish good looks, be humiliations of a more intimate kind. It occurred to me, for the first time, that Rufus might already have suffered something similar at Crassus’ hands. Or not his hands, perhaps. What a man did with his slaves was his own affair, but it would help explain why Rufus hated his master enough to murder him. Presumably he had murdered him, since he had confessed. But when, and how, and what about Daedalus?
I didn’t like it at all.
I put on my toga to conduct the interview. They had left Rufus in the dark, and when they opened the librarium door for me the sudden light blinded him for a moment. He was sitting huddled on the mosaic floor, his chained neck roped to his shackled hands, and his hands to his ankles, so that he could not attempt to stand, or even raise his head at my approach. I felt a pang of sympathy.
I had worn such bonds myself, they were of the kind commonly used in the slave market, and although it was more than twenty years since I had been captured, chained and sold, I remembered only too vividly how painful they could be. The single rope that links each set of shackles is drawn uncomfortably taut, so that the captive can only sit in one position and the slightest movement tightens them. I knew from experience how cruelly the iron chafes with every least attempt to ease the limbs, and how swiftly agonising cramp sets in. I wondered vaguely where Marcus had obtained the fetters, and then realised that Crassus probably always kept unpleasant chains of that kind somewhere in the villa.