Paul Doherty - The Song of the Gladiator

Claudia stiffened.

‘You know the one.’ Athanasius kept his voice level. ‘He is responsible for the House of Mourning. Last night, at the supper party, I tried to make friends with Justin and, to be fair, he tried to do the same. He said something very curious about that slave. .’

‘Narcissus?’

‘Ah, yes, Narcissus. Justin believed he’d seen him before, in Capua, a slave of a rather large Christian family. The head of the house was a funeral manager. Justin was sure Narcissus worked for him.’

Claudia tried to suppress her shiver.

‘And there’s something else. The afternoon Dionysius died-’

‘Murdered,’ Claudia retorted, ‘Dionysius was murdered.’

‘Ah yes, so he was. Well, I went down to the House of Mourning. The windows on either side were shuttered whilst the door was locked from the inside. In the Christian tradition, it is a just and holy thing to pray for the dead. I wanted to kneel by Dionysius’s corpse and recite a few prayers. I was surprised the door was locked, so I knocked and knocked until my knuckles turned sore. Eventually the door opened, and Narcissus stood there looking very guilty. He claimed to have fallen asleep. I told him to stand aside and went in. I glanced around, but there was nothing amiss. The old man lay wrapped in his sacking, Dionysius was stretched out on his slab like a piece of meat. Now there was something about that chamber. . I have been to Egypt, Claudia, I visited the Necropolis on the West Bank of the Nile. I’ve been to their embalmers’ shops; that’s what it smelled like.’

‘Did you notice anything else?’

Athanasius closed his eyes. ‘A large chest in the far corner, nothing else. After I’d finished my prayers, I went out.’

‘Did you notice anything untoward? Please, Athanasius, think.’

‘Just the corpses. Dionysius looked dreadful, mouth gaping, eyes half open. He looked as if he’d been soaked in blood. One thing I did notice, the ropes and gag the killer had used were piled on the floor just beneath the slab. When Justin was trying to be friendly last night, I told him how I’d been to the House of Mourning to pay my respects, and how the fire had had nothing to do with me. Justin didn’t accept that; however, he did say that he too had gone down there to pray. This time the House of Mourning was locked from the outside and the slave Narcissus was sleeping under a sycamore tree, a beer jug next to him. Justin also demanded to see the corpse; Narcissus wasn’t very pleasant about it.’

Athanasius got to his feet.

‘Do you remember the poems of Juvenal?’ He smiled down at Claudia. ‘He once posed a question: who shall guard the guards?’

‘And?’ Claudia asked.

‘In your case, little one,’ Athanasius bent down, ‘you must ask the question: who spies on the spies?’

The philosopher walked away.

‘Claudia?’

She whirled round. Burrus and Gaius Tullius were standing at the entrance to the peristyle garden. The German was dressed in his shaggy fur cloak; Gaius had put on a leather breastplate, a sword belt wrapped round his waist, marching boots on his feet. He carried a helmet under his arm which displayed the imperial scarlet and black plume. He beckoned with his hand.

‘Claudia, the Augusta has asked me to seek you out.’

She got to her feet and walked over.

‘We are to walk the track down to the coast. The Augusta was quite specific. You are to accompany us. She says you have sharp eyes and perhaps will see things we would miss.’

‘Not in a forest she won’t,’ Burrus grumbled.

‘Do you want to collect your cloak?’ The Captain ignored the German’s interruption. ‘Before we leave I want to show you something.’ And, spinning on his heel, Gaius Tullius marched away, leaving Claudia and Burrus no choice but to hurry on behind. They skirted the palace going across to the ruined House of Mourning. Gaius didn’t stop there but led them both into a clump of sycamore trees, a rather wild, untended part of the garden where the unruly brambles and gorse stretched up to the curtain wall. He pushed his way through these, Burrus behind opening a path for Claudia.

At one point Claudia paused and squatted down to examine some bones, lamb and beef, with dried scraps of meat still clinging to them. Nearby, rolled up in a ball, was a soiled napkin and, under a thorn bush, an earthenware wine jug.

‘Someone’s been feasting.’

Gaius came back to stand over her. ‘The servants are always stealing away to eat the food they’ve filched, but that’s not important. Come on. .’

They reached a small clearing just before the wall. Gaius pointed to the strong, reinforced Syrian bow lying on the ground, an empty quiver and, beside it, an earthenware pot blackened by fire.

‘I found these this morning,’ he explained, ‘or rather, my men and I did. We decided to search the grounds for anything suspicious. There was always the possibility that one of the attackers had broken through and might be hiding here.’

Claudia went across and picked up the bow. The wood and cord were soaked, as were the quiver and the earthenware pot, which still reeked of pitch and fire.

‘This must have been here some time,’ she murmured. ‘What do you think, Gaius?’

The Captain’s smooth-shaven face showed the strain of the previous night, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

‘I wish the Augusta had trusted us,’ he replied, as if talking to himself. ‘I mean no offence, Burrus.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I suppose I’m trying to prove myself. I suspect the bow, the quiver and pot of fire were used by the traitor. The House of Mourning was not a beacon fire, but on the night it was destroyed, the traitor used the confusion to loose fire arrows into the air.’

Claudia, squatting down, stared at the bow and the wall, then back in the direction they had come. What Gaius said made sense, but it still left the question of who had started the beacon fires.

‘Burrus!’ She beckoned the mercenary forward. ‘We will not be walking through the woods. No, no, Gaius,’ she held up her hand, ‘I will explain to the Augusta. I want you to send your best men into the woods, Burrus. I want them to stay away from where the battle took place. Tell them,’ she gestured with her hand, ‘to scour the area to the left of the path as you leave the villa.’

‘What are they looking for?’ Burrus asked.

‘Signs of encampment, perhaps two or three men living in the woods. They must have left a camp fire, dug a small latrine pit. They were probably soldiers, or perhaps even travelling tinkers or pedlars. If they did set up camp it would be fairly recent. Search for fire pits, scraps of clothing or food.’

Burrus nodded and hurried off.

‘And me?’ Gaius grinned. ‘Do you have orders for me?’

‘Yes, Captain, in fact I do.’

She paused as Athanasius’s voice drifted across the grass. ‘Septimus? Septimus?’

‘He’s been searching for him,’ Gaius groaned. ‘Knowing these philosophers, Septimus is probably sleeping it off somewhere.’

‘I want you to find Timothaeus,’ Claudia declared. ‘I want to talk with him about the wanderer in the woods.’

‘The old man who was found dead on the track outside the villa?’

‘The same,’ Claudia replied.

As Gaius strode off, Claudia went back to re-examine the bow and quiver and the small pot used to carry fire. She was now genuinely puzzled and intrigued why Narcissus would lie. He had told her he had left the House of Mourning, filled his stomach, drunk too much and gone to sleep it off some distance away. She now believed he was lying and wondered why. But there again, she reflected grimly, she had a number of questions for her new-found friend.