John Roberts - The Year of Confusion

“Well, I’d heard it was a rich man’s place. I’d looked it over the last few nights and never saw anyone here, nor any lights.”

“Always good to do repair work when the owner is away,” Hermes commented. “That way he’s not disturbed by all the noise.”

“That’s how it is,” Pelotas agreed.

“Does anyone know which rich man owns this house?” I asked. All I got were some shrugs. “Where did you hear that a rich man owned the place?”

“From the neighbors. I never asked his name.”

“Er, Senator,” Felix said, “what’s all this about?”

“It’s how he works,” Hermes assured him. “He collects all the available facts before he makes any assumptions.”

“Philosopher, eh?” Felix said. “I never would’ve expected.”

I looked around. The house was of modest size, but even the houses of the rich were relatively small in those days. The wealthy spent money on lavish country houses, maintaining a pose of antique virtue in Rome. There was more room for sprawl in the Trans-Tiber, but this house was on one of the smaller streets near the river and was typical of the district.

Not that it was all that modest inside. The walls in the room where we sat were adorned with frescoes of the highest quality and the floor was tiled in intricate geometrical patterns. There was a statue of Apollo just outside the door that opened onto the impluvium. It looked like a very superior copy of the original by Praxiteles, probably a product of Aphrodisias, and I knew from experience how expensive Aphrodisian sculptures could be.

No sense putting it off any longer. “Well, let’s have a look at him,” I said.

We got up and passed through the colonnade surrounding the impluvium. In the rear of the house we took a stair to the second floor and walked a few paces along the balcony to where another armed man stood guard at a door. We went inside.

As Pelotas had hinted, the smell was awful. It usually is when someone has been tortured to death. The late Postumius had been bound naked to a chair and worked over by an expert, or more likely by a team of them. He had been burned, beaten, partially flayed, and bits of him hung loose, apparently torn by pincers.

“As a soldier and magistrate,” I said, “I’ve witnessed a good many military and judicial tortures. I’ve never seen anything this comprehensive.”

“Somebody wanted some answers from him,” Felix said. “From the look of it, he didn’t know what they wanted him to tell them.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“I knew the man. He didn’t have the backbone to hold his tongue under a working over like this.”

“Very likely. Hermes-”

“I know. Go get Asklepiodes.” He turned and left the room, for once all too eager to run off on an errand.

There was a single window at the rear of the room. I went to it and opened the shutters and leaned out to breathe some clean air. Below was a short embankment, and beyond it the river. It was a good place to torture someone. It was upstairs in the center of the house, with a number of walls between this room and the neighboring houses. It was as far as you could get from the street and nothing was to the rear but the river. A man could scream as loud as he liked and not be heard.

“Any idea who owns this house?” I asked.

“None,” Felix said. “I could find out.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll just ask the neighbors as soon as the neighborhood is awake. Well, there’s nothing to be gained standing around here.”

We went back downstairs and I took another cup of the hot, spiced wine. I needed it. “It’s dawn,” I said. “You and your men can go now. I won’t forget this favor, Felix.”

“Always happy to be of service to the Senate and People,” Felix said. He knew that I might again be a sitting magistrate and in a position to spare him serious punishment. His class and mine had an understanding in these matters. They left me alone with my thoughts and the remaining wine. It was almost gone when Asklepiodes arrived.

He was as cheerful as usual, despite the hour. “Murder never waits upon our convenience, does it, Decius?”

“I fear not. Hermes will show you where he is. Have a look and tell me what you think.” They disappeared upstairs. From outside, I heard morning sounds as the neighborhood embarked upon the coming day. Birds sang and I heard distant hammering. They were not upstairs for long.

“That’s enough to put a man off his breakfast,” he said.

“Have some wine,” I advised. “There’s a bit left.”

He held up a hand. “I don’t drink wine before noon.”

“That’s an odd habit,” I commented. I peered into the bottom of the pitcher. “Just as well. There really isn’t all that much left. Were you able to learn anything?”

“Only that the torture was carried on far too long. Painful though they were, his injuries were not sufficient to kill him by themselves. Signs of suffocation are absent. He died from the pain or terror or a combination of the two.”

“From the look of him they would have been sufficient for the task,” I observed. “It seems Felix the Wise was right. He didn’t have whatever information they wanted from him.”

“You assume that this was a torture for information?”

“Naturally. That’s the most common reason to give a man a working over like that.”

“Might it not have been revenge?”

I thought about it. “He seems hardly the sort to have earned such enmity, but then, how much do we know about him? I suppose someone truly vindictive might have wanted him to expire with embellishments. Rome abounds in men qualified to deliver the treatment.”

“I will take my leave then. I am still working on the neck-breaking puzzle. It seems to me that I must be overlooking something abundantly obvious.”

“I’ve had that feeling for this whole weary business,” I told him. He left with my thanks.

Hermes and I went outside to the now-awake neighborhood. A barber had set up his stool, his basin of warm water, and his vials of oil. A shopkeeper opened his shutters and dragged out his display cabinets of copper pans and platters. I walked over to this man.

“Good morning, Senator,” he said. He didn’t seem to recognize me as the infamous calendar tamperer.

“Good morning. Would you happen to know who owns that house?” I pointed to the one from which I had just emerged.

“It’s been standing empty for quite a while,” he said. “Last I remember, it belonged to that tribune of the people, the one who died in Africa a while back, fighting for Caesar’s cause.”

“Curio?” Hermes said.

“That’s the one.”

“Did he actually live there?” I asked him.

“I don’t recall ever seeing him there.”

“Has anybody lived there recently?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not in months. There were some funny-looking people there a few months ago, foreigners of some sort, but they were only there for a little while, less than a month.”

“What sort of foreigners?” Hermes asked.

“Couldn’t say. Not Greeks, but that’s as much as I can tell you. They didn’t show themselves much and never talked to anyone here that I heard of.”

“Have you seen anyone go in or out the last few days?” I inquired.

“Not in the daytime,” he said. “As for the nights, I couldn’t say.”

I thanked him and we walked away a few steps. “Curio again,” I said.

“So this place belongs to Fulvia?” Hermes said.

“I hope not. Let’s not assume so. It may have passed to someone else in his will. I hope that’s the case. I don’t want to have to haul Fulvia into court. She’d probably just have me killed, even if Antonius didn’t.”