The officer took a good look at Antipater and me. “You two are witnesses?”
“I found the bodies,” I said. “But we didn’t witness anything.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Quintus Menenius, commander of the garrison here at Lechaeum. And who are you?”
“I’m Gordianus of Rome. This is my old tutor, Zoticus. We’ve just come from the Games at Olympia. We were going to cross the isthmus this morning and catch a ship over at Cenchrea—”
“Not today, you won’t. Show me these bodies, Centurion Gnaeus,” he said, paying the innkeeper the courtesy of using his old title. “And you two, come along. I may have more questions for you.”
Quintus Menenius had surely witnessed bloodier spectacles in his years of military service, but when he saw the carnage in the tavern he drew a sharp breath and shuddered.
“All these men were your guests here at the inn, Centurion Gnaeus?”
“Yes.”
“Were they robbed?”
“Their rooms appear to be untouched. I don’t know about their persons.”
“Lucius! Marcus! Examine the bodies. See if you find any coin purses.”
Moving from corpse to corpse, the two soldiers found small money bags on each, all apparently intact.
The commander furrowed his brow. “No robbery? Then why were they killed? And how was it done, without a struggle?” He shook his head. “Put the coin purses back where you found them, men. These are Roman citizens. There will have to be a scrupulous inventory of each victim’s property—for the inquest.” He uttered the final word with a tone of dread, and sighed, as if weary already of the mountain of reports he would be obliged to file.
Stuffing a coin purse back where he had found it, Lucius suddenly drew back.
“What do you see, soldier?” said Menenius.
At the same moment, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Marcus; he, too, was returning a coin purse, this one to the body of Titus Tullius—but did I see him remove an object from the little leather bag? I wasn’t sure, and no one else seemed to notice. Then I was distracted, for Lucius, having previously drawn back, now cautiously reached for something beneath the body at his feet, then snatched back his hand as if scalded.
“By Hercules, man, what is it?” Stepping over corpses, Menenius stooped down and pulled a thin, flat object from beneath the body. It was a lead tablet such as I had seen in the witch’s den.
Menenius heard me gasp. He gave me a sharp look, then returned his attention to the tablet, squinting at the letters scraped into the lead. With a snort, he abruptly crossed the room and shoved the tablet into my hands. “Here, you have young eyes—and you seem to know what this is. Read it aloud.”
I scanned the words. Hackles rose on my neck. “I’m not sure I should.”
“Read it!”
I took a deep breath. “‘Ananke, I call on you. Moira, I call on you. Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name, I call on you. Strike down these impious Romans! Rob them of their lives and let them join the dead whom they besmirch. Open their throats and let the blood of life pour out of them—’”
Lucius emitted a stifled shriek and began to shake. He looked as if he might bolt from the room. Only his commander’s glowering gaze held him in check.
“Go on!” shouted Menenius.
“‘Destroy these Romans, Ananke. Destroy them utterly, Moira. Annihilate the impious defamers of the dead, Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name—’”
Lucius began to sway. His eyes rolled up in his head. He crumpled to the floor amid the dead bodies.
“By Hercules, the man’s fainted!” said Menenius with disgust. He ordered a couple of his soldiers to tend to Lucius, then snatched the lead tablet from me. “Witchcraft!” he declared. “The local women are mad for it. Was this the work of your serving woman, Centurion Gnaeus?”
The innkeeper looked back at him, speechless.
“It will all come out at the inquest.” Menenius sighed. “We’ll have to round up the local women and make them talk. Extracting evidence from females suspected of practicing magic—a nasty business, hardly suitable work for Roman soldiers, but there you have it. Garrison life!” He ordered the soldiers to clear the bodies from the room and take an inventory of their belongings, then asked the innkeeper to show him the dead men’s rooms. Antipater and I were dismissed, for the time being.
While Antipater stepped outside, saying he needed fresh air, I drew Marcus aside. “Your friend Lucius was terrified when I read that curse.”
Marcus grinned. “He’d hide behind his shadow if he thought a witch was in the room.”
“So you don’t think what happened here was the result of a curse?”
He shrugged. “Who can say? The commander will determine who, or what, killed these men.”
“What did you take from Tullius’s coin purse?”
The question caught him off guard. He tried to feign innocence. I tried to feign certainty, since I was not at all sure of what I’d seen. I kept my gaze steady, and it was Marcus who gave way. With a crooked smile and a shrug, he produced a finely crafted bronze image of Hercules the size of a man’s finger.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” he said.
“Where do you think Tullius got such a thing?”
“Perhaps he brought it with him, as a lucky charm.”
“Then little good it did him,” I said. “Do you mind if I keep it?”
For a moment, Marcus maintained his good-natured mask, then abruptly let it drop. “If I say no, I suppose you’ll tell the commander, eh?” He glared at me. “Go ahead then, take it. That makes you a thief, too, and no better than me. I suppose we all have a bit of magpie in us, eh? Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
Marcus rejoined the others in the gruesome task of moving the dead bodies.
* * *
Even though we had told him all we knew, Menenius would not allow Antipater and me to move on until the inquest took place. The driver refused to stay any longer, and headed home to Olympia with his wagon early the next morning.
There could hardly have been a more boring place to get stuck. A full day exploring the ruins of Corinth had been quite enough for me. Lechaeum itself had little to offer beyond the tavern, which I could no longer enter without becoming nauseated. The dusty, sparsely stocked little shops clustered around the garrison offered nothing to tempt me; nor did the brothel on the waterfront, to judge by the haggard women I saw coming and going by the back entrance.
On the bright side, it appeared that the inquest would be held in short order. Things did not look good for Ismene, the serving woman at the tavern. A search of her little hut turned up materials used in witchcraft—the same types of lamps, incense burners, and blank lead tablets that Antipater and I had discovered in the witch’s den on the Slope of Sisyphus, along with small lead boxes containing wooden dolls, which according to Antipater could also be used to cast spells. Obviously, Ismene was a witch, and presumably had written the curse tablet discovered in the tavern—but she was nowhere to be found. The soldiers searched every house in the vicinity and questioned all the locals. Ismene had vanished into thin air.
According to Gnaeus, the locals all agreed that witchcraft had killed the Romans. Absent evidence to the contrary, it seemed that the commander was prepared to go along with this idea.
“Do we really believe all those men were killed by a curse?” I asked Antipater. We were sitting under the shade of a fig tree outside the inn, enduring the heat of the day along with the dogs lying in the dust nearby.
“You read the tablet yourself, Gordianus. It called upon the forces of necessity and fate, as well as this Egyptian Ufer, whoever he is, to ‘open their throats.’ Isn’t that exactly what happened—in the middle of the night, with no resistance from the victims, and so quietly that neither you nor I was awakened? That sounds like witchcraft to me.” Antipater shuddered. “What’s that in your hand?”