Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

Eco pushed his plate away, looking slightly queasy. Davus stared intently at the woman and used his teeth to tear a shred of rabbit flesh off a bone.

"And then what?" I said.

"Marcus had barred the doors and the shutters downstairs. The attackers got closer and closer, and then they were at the door. Bang, bang, bang! Beating at the door, at the shutters, with their fists, with the pommels of their swords. The racket was terrifying. She covered her ears and still she could hear it. It went on and on-men crying out, the crack of splintered wood and broken hinges, screams and yells, clanging steel." The woman rolled her eyes up. "Sometimes I can't sleep at night, imagining what she must have gone through, trapped up there, alone and helpless. She finally gathered up all the blankets, crouched in a corner and piled the blankets on top of her. She says she can't even remember doing it, but she must have, because finally she realized that all the noise was over and there she was, sweating under all those blankets but shivering as if she were naked."

"How much time had passed?"

"Who knows? A few moments, an hour? She couldn't say. Finally she got up the courage to peek through the blankets. She was still all alone upstairs, and there was only silence from down below. She went to a window and looked out. She saw bodies scattered here and there along the road, and the strangest thing — right in front of the tavern, a litter with a group of people standing around it."

"A litter?"

"Yes, not a carriage or a wagon, but a litter, the kind that's carried by a team of slaves, with curtains for privacy. The litter had been put down, the bearers were standing by. An old man in a senator's toga and a woman were standing over one of the fallen men in the road with their heads together, talking."

"Did your sister recognize the senator?"

"No, but she knew the litter. We've seen it for years, heading up to Rome and coming back again. It belongs to an old senator who owns one of the villas on the mountain, Sextus Tedius. I've never seen his face. He's not the sort to come into a place like this."

"And the man they were leaning over?"

"Clodius."

"Your sister was able to recognize him, even at a distance?"

"I suppose so. That's what she said, that it was Clodius."

"How did he get from the tavern into the road?"

"Who knows? Probably Eudamus and Birria dragged him out there, like dogs with a rabbit." I thought of the marks around Clodius's throat. Perhaps he had been Uterally dragged by the neck.

The woman looked at our plates. "Why, you two haven't finished your meat! On a chilly day like this, a man needs plenty of hot food in his belly, to keep up his strength. This one knows how to eat!" She cast a toothy grin at Davus, who finished sucking the last bit of marrow from a bone and cast a lingering glance at the uneaten meat on our plates. "Wasn't it good?"

"Excellent," I assured her. "Roasted to perfection. I'm afraid we stuffed ourselves with too much of your fine bread and cheese beforehand." I slid my plate and Eco's towards Davus. "You say your sister saw bodies scattered along the road and Senator Tedius and his wife — "

"Not his wife. Senator Tedius is a widower. The woman would have been his daughter, I imagine. His only child; she's never married and is very devoted to him."

"I see. Then she saw Senator Tedius and his daughter with their litter out front, discussing what to do with Clodius. Where were Milo's men?"

"Vanished. They'd won the battle, hadn't they? What reason did they have to stay? My poor sister finally found the courage to creep down the stairs. I know what she saw, because I saw it myself later — eveiything overturned and broken, the door off its hinges, all the shutters smashed. It was as if the Furies themselves had been unleashed in this room. And worst of all, right at the foot of the stairs, poor Marcus, pierced all over with wounds and not a breath left in his body. At the foot of the stairs, don't you see — defending her. She must have lost her senses for a while, because the next thing she remembers is arriving at my house up the hill. She could barely talk for weeping. Oh, how she wept!" -

"And the people outside the tavern," I said quietly. "Senator Tedius and his retinue?"

She shrugged. "They were all gone by the time my husband and I got here. So was Clodius, or whatever was left of him. Later we heard that Tedius had sent the body on to Rome in his litter, and hundreds of people gathered at Clodius's house in Rome that night and lit bonfires. His poor widow! But Fulvia's grief couldn't have been any greater than my sister's. There were no gatherings here, no bonfires, just a great mess to be cleaned up. The next day my husband saw that all the bodies were gathered up and laid out in rows over by the stable. A man from Clodius's villa came with a wagon and claimed them. But they didn't clean the blood from the Appian Way — you can still see great patches of it between here and the shrine of the Good Goddess. And nobody's offered to pay a single sesterce towards the repairs we had to make to this place. I told my husband that he should take Milo to court for damages, but he says we should wait and see how things go up in Rome before we get ourselves into more trouble. How do you like that? Honest men suffer in silence while a man like Milo can still put himself forward for consul. It's an outrage!"

I nodded sympathetically. "So you and your husband arrived after everyone else had scattered?"

"Yes. All we saw were dead bodies."

"At what time of day did all this happen?"

"The battle? Well, considering when we arrived, and from all my sister said, I think it must have been about the middle of the afternoon. I'd say Milo arrived in Bovillae at the ninth hour, watered his horses, rounded up his entourage and moved on, and then his gladiators chased Clodius here at the tenth hour."

"Not later? Not closer to sunset?"

She shook her head. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "One hears so many different versions of the story up in Rome…"

There was a noise from the open doorway behind us. I stiffened, but the woman smiled at the men who entered. "Roasted rabbit today, if I can trust my nose," said one of them.

"And turnips with our hostess's special sauce!" said one of his companions, sniffing the air. They settled themselves on some benches in a comer.

"What do we owe you?" I asked the woman. As I counted coins from Eco's purse I leaned towards her over the bar. "Your sister — how is she now?"

She shook her head. "A broken woman, as I told you. I don't know if she'll ever get over it."

"Is there any chance that she could receive a visitor?"

"A visitor?" The woman frowned.

I lowered my voice even further. "Forgive me: I haven't been entirely forthcoming with you, I'm afraid. But now that I've heard you speak, I know I can trust you. I didn't just happen to pass by today."

"No?" The woman looked at me suspiciously, but with growing interest.

"No. I'm here on behalf of Fulvia."

"Clodius's widow?" She raised her eyebrows.

'Yes — please, keep your voice down. I wasn't sure I could trust you before, but now that I've heard your feelings about Clodius, and about Milo and his wife…"

"Roasted rabbit! Roasted rabbit!" The newcomers began to chant and beat their fists against the tables, laughing good-naturedly.

"Just wait your turn!" shouted our hostess, with a gjare that they took for a joke. They laughed and began another chant that quickly disintegrated into laughter: "Tur-nips! Tur-nips! Tur — "

She leaned closer and spoke just above a whisper. "I see! So you're here to help wreck Milo's schemes."

I pursed my hps. "I can't say that's my purpose for being here, exactly, but I can say that Fulvia has asked me to find out what I can about her husband's death."