Steven Saylor - The House Of The Vestals

"There's no sign of a weapon," I said, looking about the room. "Perhaps one of the missing pieces was used to strike that blow to Stephanos's head. Something with a rather straight, hard edge, by the look of the wound. Perhaps the plate…"

"What a horrid idea! Poor Stephanos." Lucius rested his hands on the lid of the chest and suddenly drew back with a gasp of horror. He held up his hand and I saw that the palm was smeared with blood.

"Where did that come from?" I said.

"The cloth atop the chest. It's hard to see in this light, the cloth being red, but there's a spot that's wet with blood."

"Here, it's been pushed all askew. Let's put it as it was before." We straightened the cloth and discovered that the bloody spot was right above the edge of the top of the chest.

"As if he hit his forehead on the hard wood," said Lucius.

"Yes, as if he fell-or was pushed," I said.

Thropsus cleared his throat. "Master, should I go and look for Zoticus now?"

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "We shall look for him together."

A quick search of the slaves' quarters revealed that Zoticus was not in the house. We returned to the pilfered treasure room.

"Should I go search for Zoticus in the streets, Master?" The quaver in Thropsus's voice indicated that he was well aware of the delicacy of his position. If Zoticus had committed murder and theft, was it not likely that his friend Thropsus had been a partner in the scheme? Even if Thropsus was entirely innocent, the testimony of slaves is by law extracted through torture; if the silver was not retrieved and the matter resolved quickly, Thropsus was likely to face an ugly predicament. My friend Lucius has a good heart, but he comes from a very old patrician family after all, and the patricians of Rome didn't get to be where they are today by being altruistic or squeamish, especially in handling their property, human or otherwise.

Lucius dismissed Thropsus to his quarters and then turned to me. "Gordianus, what shall I do?" He moaned, at that moment not sounding very patrician at all.

"Keep Thropsus here, of course. Out on his own he might panic and get some mad idea about running off, and that always ends badly for a slave. Besides," I added under my breath, "he just might be guilty of conspiring to steal your silver. I also suggest you hire some gladiators, if you can find any who are sober, to go round up Zoticus, if they can find him."

"And if he hasn't got the silver on him?"

"Then it's up to you to decide how to go about obtaining the truth from him."

"What if he protests his innocence?"

"I suppose it's possible that some outsider might have come over the wall and stolen your silver. Another of your slaves, perhaps, or someone from the Street of the Silversmiths who would have known about your recent purchases. But find Zoticus first and find out what he knows."

Eco, who had been looking pensive for some time, suddenly demanded my attention. He pointed at the corpse of Stephanos and then performed a mime, smiling stupidly and pretending to laugh.

Lucius was taken aback. "Really, there's nothing funny about it!"

"No, Lucius, you misunderstand. Are you saying, Eco, that it was Stephanos whom you heard laughing?"

Eco nodded, in such a way as to indicate that he had been debating his judgment of the matter and had finally made up his mind about it.

"Stephanos, laughing?" said Lucius, in the same tone he might have used if Eco had indicated that he had seen Stephanos breathing fire or juggling his eyeballs.

"He did seem a rather dour fellow," I agreed, giving Eco a skeptical look. "And if it was Stephanos who laughed, then why didn't Thropsus say so?"

"Probably because he had never heard Stephanos laugh before," said Lucius. "I don't think I ever heard such a thing myself." He looked down at the corpse with a puzzled expression. "Are you sure it was Stephanos you heard laughing, Eco?"

Eco crossed his arms and nodded gravely. He had made up his mind.

"Ah well, perhaps we'll never know for sure," I said, walking toward the door.

"You're not staying to help me, Gordianus?"

"Alas, Lucius Claudius, I must take my leave for now. There's a dinner to be prepared, and a concubine to be served."

Eco and I managed to get home relatively unscathed. A group of giggling prostitutes impeded our progress for a while by dancing in a ring around us, another King Numa carried aloft in a litter poured a cup of wine over my head, and a drunken gladiator vomited on one of Eco's shoes, but the trip from the Palatine to the Subura was otherwise uneventful.

The fare we prepared for dinner was very simple, as suited my talents. Even so, Bethesda seemed barely able to keep out of the kitchen. Every so often she peered through the doorway wearing a skeptical frown and shaking her head, as if the very way I held a knife betrayed my utter incompetence in culinary matters.

At last, as the winter sun was beginning to sink into the west, Eco and I emerged from the kitchen to find Bethesda and Belbo comfortably ensconced on the dining couches normally reserved for ourselves. Eco pulled up the little dining tables while I fetched the various courses-a lentil soup, a millet porridge with ground lamb, an egg pudding with honey and pine nuts.

Belbo seemed content with his meal, but then Belbo enjoys every meal, so long as there's enough of it; he smacked his lips, ate with his fingers, and laughed out loud at the novelty of sending his young master Eco to fetch more wine, accepting the tradition of reversing roles as a lark. Bethesda, on the other hand, approached each dish with an air of cool detachment. As always, her typically aloof demeanor masked the true depth of what was going on inside her, which I suspected was as complex and subtle as the most exquisite ragout. Partly she was skeptical of my cooking, partly she enjoyed the novelty of being served and the pretense of being a Roman matron, and partly she wished to hide any outward sign of her enjoyment because, ah well, because Bethesda is Bethesda.

She did, however, deign to compliment me on the egg pudding, for which I took a bow.

"And how was your day, Master?" she asked casually, settling back on the couch. I stood close by, my arms clasped deferentially behind my back. In her imagination, was I reduced to a slave-or worse, to a husband?

I recounted to her the day's events, as slaves are often called upon to do by their masters at the end of the day, Bethesda listened abstractedly, running her hands through her luxurious black hair and tapping at her full red lips. When I described my encounter with Cicero, her dark eyes flashed, for she has always been suspicious of any man who has a greater appetite for books than for women or food; when I told her I had called on Lucius Claudius she smiled, for she knows how susceptible he is to her beauty; when I told her of Stephanos's demise and the disappearance of the silver, she became deeply pensive. She leaned forward to rest her chin on her hand, and it suddenly occurred to me that she was very dangerously close to performing a parody of me.

After I had explained the unfortunate events, she asked me to explain them again, then called on Eco, who had been performing some childish hand-slapping game with Belbo, to come over and clarify some aspects of the story. Again, as he had at Lucius's house, he insisted that it was Stephanos whom he had heard laughing.

"Master," said Bethesda thoughtfully, "will this slave Thropsus be tortured?"

"Possibly." I sighed. "If Lucius is unable to recover the silver, he may lose his head-Lucius, I mean, though Thropsus could eventually lose his head as well, literally."

"And if Zoticus is found, without the silver, protesting his innocence?"

"He will almost certainly be tortured," I said. "Lucius would lose face with his family and his colleagues if he were to allow himself to be duped by a slave."