John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

“Please do. I always enjoy your company.”

As we left through the atrium I saw the ambassador and his entourage waiting. With them was Archelaus, the ambassador from Parthia. I nodded to them in passing.

“That’s one time too many we’ve seen that man,” I said to Hermes as we left the house. I touched my nose gingerly. The small wound had scabbed over.

“Ambassadors are always in one another’s company,” Hermes said. “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Maybe I’m just being overly suspicious. Getting shot by a pygmy is enough to unnerve a man.”

“That was Cleopatra’s doing,” Hermes said.

“What!” I all but shouted, turning to face him. “What do you mean?”

“That one was lurking close by the whole time you were talking, not running around with the others. Cleopatra gave him a hand-sign”-he moved his hand from the wrist, waving his fingers subtly, — “and he shot.”

I couldn’t believe it, but I knew better than to think that Hermes would speak idly. He had been a slave, and slaves learn early how to read their master’s little unspoken signals. If he had seen Cleopatra make that gesture, then she had made it.

“Well, obviously she didn’t want me killed,” I said.

“Unless the arrow really was poisoned. How are you feeling?”

“She just wanted to distract me. What were we talking about?” The incident had come as such a shock that I had actually forgotten.

“You’d just brought up Servilia’s name.”

“So that’s what she doesn’t want to talk about. It could be for a number of reasons. For one, if Caesar really has taken back up with Servilia, it could be a very sore point with Cleopatra.” I rubbed my nose again. “Still, this seems a bit extreme, just to avoid an unpleasant subject.”

“She may be planning to kill Servilia.”

“That would be a good reason to want to avoid talking about her,” I agreed. “Or maybe the two of them are up to something together.” We walked toward the Sublician Bridge and the City proper. “I wish Caesar wasn’t so addicted to dangerous women.”

“It’s a fault you’ve shown from time to time,” he pointed out.

“Don’t remind me.”

Before reaching the bridge we called at the Statilian ludus , where some of Italy’s best gladiators trained. Some claimed that the Campanian schools were better, and they certainly had a longer history, but the old Statilian school turned out fighters as fine as any I ever saw. We went to the hospital and found Asklepiodes standing behind a seated trainee.

“Ah, Senator, come in,” he said. “Look at this.” We stepped close and I saw that he had drawn little circles on the back of the young man’s neck corresponding to the red marks we had seen on the backs of the two victims’ necks. “Observe, we have two marks to the left of the spinal column, two corresponding marks somewhat lower to the right side. Now look.” He placed the two first knuckles of each hand against the circles. The correspondence was perfect.

“Were their necks broken with a two-fisted punch?” I asked him. “I’ve never seen such a blow.”

“I think not. It would be a stunning blow, but it would just knock the man forward. I cannot see how it could apply enough leverage to make the vertebrae shear and dislocate in such a way. I’ve had the pugilism instructors here and questioned them about it. They say the same thing. Such a blow could break a neck only under freakish circumstances, and your murderer accomplished the feat twice in a row. No, we are dealing here with a deadly art of which I was utterly unaware.”

“Perhaps when we’ve solved this business you’ll get a good philosophical paper out of it.”

“I intend to,” the little Greek said. “It will make me the envy of many of my colleagues. We so seldom come across something new in the methodology of killing.”

“There are others like you?” I asked.

“Oh, certainly. Just as some physicians specialize in particular diseases and conditions, there are a few of us who specialize in deadly violence and its effects upon the human body. Polygonus of Caria, for instance, and Timonides the Paphlagonian. We are a small but enthusiastic body of scholars.”

“And I thank the gods that we have you,” I assured him.

“There must have been some means of applying leverage,” he said.

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“There must have been something to immobilize the neck while pressure was brought to bear from the rear. It is the only thing that makes any sense. I would suspect a garotte, but there were no ligature marks on their necks.”

“It is a puzzle,” I agreed. “Keep working on it. Oh, I wished to ask you about something. You may have noticed the somewhat damaged condition of my nose.”

“I had taken note of your disfigurement, but thought it indiscreet to inquire.”

“Well, nothing particularly embarrassing about it. But it was caused by an arrow.”

“We don’t see many such injuries here in Rome,” he said.

“Indeed. I was just wondering, is there any way to tell if an arrow was poisoned?”

“Surely. If it was poisoned you will die a lingering and horribly painful death.”

“But short of that?” I asked.

“I would not worry about it. Arrows are rarely poisoned, though everybody seems to think they always are. Poison would cause immediate inflammation and I see none in your majestic proboscis.”

“Excellent,” I said, relieved.

Of course, it was the first thing Julia noticed when I got home. “You’ve been fighting again!” she accused as we walked in.

“Nothing of the sort. I am the victim this time.” I threw off my toga and a servant caught it expertly.

“So what happened?”

“A pygmy shot me in the nose with an arrow.”

She glared for a while. “Please show me enough respect to make up a better lie than that.” So I had to give her the whole story and she was mollified. She never apologized for naming me a liar, though. We went to the triclinium and reclined while dinner was laid out. Hermes went off on some errand of his own.

A slave brought in the family lares and I performed a perfunctory libation. Then I took a cup, tore off a hunk of bread, dipped it in garlic-flavored oil and talked between bites and swallows. “Did you pay a visit to Servilia?”

“Oh, yes. She acted as if she had been expecting me. You’d think she was suspicious.”

“She has reason to be. How did it go?”

“To begin with, I was far from the only lady there. A woman as prominent as Servilia has flocks of callers.”

“Were there any notable names among them?” I asked, grabbing a handful of oil-cured olives.

“Fulvia was there, loaded with scandalous gossip.”

“Well, she’s the one to have it, being more than a bit scandalous herself.” The flamboyant Fulvia had been married to my old enemy Clodius, who was killed by my friend Milo, then she married Curio who had died fighting for Caesar in Africa. Recently she had married Marcus Antonius and was pushing his career as fiercely as she had those of her first two husbands. Julia named a few other prominent women.

“That sounds promising,” I said. “What was all the talk about?”

“The usual things. We had to listen to Servilia praising her son Brutus as the very paragon of Roman virtue. Fulvia described Antonius’s endowments in embarrassing detail. Several complained of the inconvenience the new calendar is causing them. They blame you.”

“Naturally. Anything germane to my investigation?” I pulled a plate of baked fish closer.

“Not at first, but then I am more subtle than you. I don’t reveal my intentions by diving straight into my subject of inquiry.”