Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"Envy, hatred…"

"Yes," I said, "and both of them politicians, not shy about putting themselves forwards. We know how skilful Clodius was at laying on the common touch; he made an art of it. Milo, who really did have common roots, seems to have been rather clumsy at it."

"So our hostess says, Papa, but she's obviously biased. And what's this about Clodius cutting down sacred trees, displacing the local Vestal Virgins-"

Kicking open the back door, out hostess returned bearing a steaming platter. A tall, hulking figure came in after her, carrying a steaming bowl. The fellow was so large that I felt a little apprehensive until I realized who it was.

"Davus! What are you doing? You're supposed to be watching the horses. A fine thing if we were to finish our meal and find them gone. I don't care to walk the twelve miles back to Rome."

"Don't worry," said the woman. "I sent one of my boys to take his place. Your horses will be safe, you have my word for it. Isn't it all right for your slave to come inside? The clouds are starting to creep down from the mountaintop, and a fellow can catch a chill, sitting out in the open air. Let him warm up a bit." She cast a look at Davus such as women, alas, have all too rarely cast at me. Just because a fellow happens to be nineteen, has wavy black hair, oxlike shoulders and a profile like a Greek statue…

"She's brought him inside so that she can look at him!" said Eco from the corner of his mouth.

"Obviously," I agreed. "This is the woman who preferred Clodius to Milo, remember."

The woman put plates and-utensils before the three of us and filled our cups. The steaming platter turned out to be the roasted rabbit. Rabbit is not my favourite flesh — too greasy and bony — but it was well cooked and I was too hungry to quibble. The steaming bowl was full of glazed turnips. I complimented our hostess on the sauce.

"Oh, it's simple enough. A bit of cumin, a little garlic, some honey and vinegar and olive oil, a pinch of rue. A root vegetable calls for a spicy sauce, my mother always said."

"It's really quite excellent," I said, and meant it. But it was time to bring her back to the death of Clodius. "Did you do much of the cooking here at the tavern before that unfortunate day?"

"Oh, every now and again, especially after my sister had her boy."

"But you weren't here that day?"

"No, as I said, there was only my sister, working upstairs, and Marcus."

"Had Clodius come through Bovillae the previous day?"

"So my sister told me, but he didn't stop in. She saw his entourage come marching through, but they passed so quickly that she only caught a glimpse of Clodius, riding at the head with his little boy beside him and a couple of friends."

"And on the day of the incident, Milo must have passed through here not long before the battle."

"Oh, yes, my sister remembers that vividly — remembers everything that happened that day, like a bad dream you can't forget. Milo did stop for a while, to water his horses, but none of his men came into the tavern. Still, she says you couldn't miss his entourage. It went on and on, like one of those triumphal processions in the city. That's how he usually travelled, at least when she was with him."

"Fausta Cornelia, you mean."

"Yes. You'd think she couldn't leave the house without ten slaves to make up her face in the morning and ten slaves to tuck her into bed at night. And I suppose Gaius Papius — Milo, if you must — simply liked showing off all those slaves and bodyguards to his friends and family back in Lanuvium. 'Look at me! I just can't seem to leave the house without having a hundred minions trailing behind me!' "

"A hundred? Were there that many people in his entourage that day?"

She shrugged. "Oh, I don't know the number. As I say, I didn't see it myself, my sister did. But she says that while Milo was watering his hones at the stable, with his people milling about, they filled up the road, like a crowd in the Forum in Rome, and when they finally got going again, the procession just seemed to go on and on. Marcus made a joke of it, she said. If only Milo had watered his slaves as well as his horses, they could have sold every drop of wine in stock and paid for a new roof!"

"So Milo's party was bigger than the group that Clodius passed through with on the previous day?"

"Are you a simpleton, or are you just not listening? Yes, definitely. Much, much bigger."

"But Clodius's party was made up entirely of armed men — so I've heard — whereas you make it sound as though Milo travelled with hairdressers and cosmeticians."

"Fausta's slaves were in the party, yes, but Milo always travelled with plenty of gladiators, some of them pretty famous. Ever heard of Eudamus and Birria?"

"Of course. They were in Milo's party?"

"He owned the two of them. Isn't that just like him — to buy a pair of famous gladiators just so he could show them off? Even I've heard of Eudamus and Birria, and I have about as much interest in seeing men kill each other in an arena as I do in watching a beetle roll a piece of dung across the road. Though some of those gladiators aren't hard to look at…" She cast a glance at Davus, who busied himself with tearing a bit of rabbit flesh off the bone. "Eudamus and Birria, on the other hand — now those two are about as pretty as a donkey's hincl end, and about as hard to miss. They always brought up the rear of Milo's entourage. Huge, like walking trees. You never see one without the other. My husband says they used to fight as a team in the arena."

"Yes, two against two, sometimes two against four," said Davus, pulling a rabbit bone from his mouth. Eco and I both looked at him in surprise.

"Go on, Davus," I said.

He cleared his throat. "It's just that when I was a boy my old master used to take us all to watch the fights," he explained. "He owned a few gladiators himself. Thought about training me for the arena, but finally decided I was too small and he could make a better deal selling me as a bodyguard. He always said that no man ever lost money betting on Eudamus and Birria. It didn't matter what sort of weapon they used, or in what combination — trident and net, short sword, axe, with shields or without. They could paralyse a man with fear, just by staring at him. The two scariest men who ever lived, that's what my old master used to call them."

I speared a turnip with my fork and dabbed it in the sauce. "And these gladiators were with Milo when he passed through that day?"

The woman nodded. "Of that I'm certain, because they were the first of the men who came running after Clodius. My sister saw them from an upstairs window."

"Is that where she stayed during the attack, upstairs?"

"This is how she tells it: she heard the noise when Clodius and his men rushed in, and she started to come down. She just caught a glimpse of them, then Marcus yelled at her to go back upstairs."

"How many men did she see?"

"Not very many. Five or six, she said, and Clodius lying on this counter, gripping his shoulder and gnashing his teeth, giving orders to the rest."

"Giving orders?"

"Yes, telling them to close the shutters and so forth." "Then he was wounded but still conscious." "Very much so. Determined, my sister said — His men were looking to him for directions. But the looks on those men's faces…" "What sort of look?"

"Like men with death on their heels, bracing themselves to turn and look it in the fece. That's just how she put it. Panic-stricken, gasping for breath. When they heard her on the stairs, they all gave a start and looked up at her like startled rabbits. All except Clodius, she said. He smiled at her. Smiled! Then Marcus yelled for her to go back, and she ran up the stairs." "Then what?"

"She ran to a window to see what they were running from. Just a little up the road a man had fallen. Two men stood over him, hacking at him with swords — blood flying all over the place. The fallen man must have been with Clodius. The other two were Eudamus and Birria. She recognized them right away — like demons from Hades, she said, like monsters from an old story. Farther up the road she could see more fallen men, and what looked like a whole army of gladiators heading for the tavern. Imagine how she felt! Eudamus and Birria finished hacking at the fallen man and came lumbering towards the tavern. The others came rushing up behind them. Oh, it makes me sick to think of it. My baby sister…" She shook her head and patted her hand against her breast.