Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

Felix shrugged. "Who else?"

"But I thought that the five or six men defending Clodius at the inn were all killed."

"Yes, I suppose they were. Maybe these were some of his men rounded up from the woods."

"Were these prisoners wounded? Were they bloody?"

He looked puzzled. "Now that you ask me, no, I don't think they were."

I shook my head. According to Fulvia, at least half of Clodius's men had scattered and fled into the woods early in the battle — these were the few survivors who had eventually come back to her with fragmentary reports of the disaster — and all the rest had died, either along the road or protecting Clodius at the inn. According to her, no one in Clodius's entourage was missing or unaccounted for. Who then were these prisoners the priest spoke of? And if Senator Tedius had come along in his litter before Milo's men departed, not after, how was it that when the innkeeper's wife ventured to look out of the window after the battle, she saw only Senator Tedius and his daughter standing over Clodius with their retinue, and no sign of Milo's men? The precise sequence of events was suddenly muddled in my mind. What exactly had the innkeeper's wife seen with her own eyes? Her sister-in-law was only a secondhand witness, and might have inadvertently changed some detail or left something out. If only the woman was not so far away, in Rhegium…

"Well, this is the spot!" announced the priest, a little out of breath from the uphill climb. "There's the shrine of the Good Goddess, up ahead on the right." He pointed to a miniature temple with a round roof just off the road, ringed by oak trees. "This is where the battle started. Clodius and his men were coming down the hill, and Milo and his men were heading up."

Was that how it had happened — two parties simply happened to pass on the road and somehow came to blows? Or had there in fact been an ambush, no matter how ill conceived on the part of Clodius and his smaller force? The spot was perfect for it; the trees were dense enough on either side to provide hiding places and the slope of the land would have favoured an attacker corning from above.

But who, excepting the parties involved, had actually witnessed the event?

"Felicia!" cried the priest to a tall, lithe figure in a white gown who had stepped out of the woods surrounding the shrine of the Good Goddess. As she approached us she raised her hand in greeting and smiled, and I saw that she was older than I had first thought. There was a luminous quality about her pale face and a gracefulness in her step that at a distance projected the illusion of youth. Clearly, she had once been a stunningly beautiful woman. She was still very pleasing to look at.

The priest stepped towards her and put his hands on his hips. "Kindly wait your turn, Felicia. I am escorting these men for the moment."

"Of course, of course!" She mocked him by making a pretence of being intimidated, fluttering her eyelashes and wringing her hands. "I know the rules. You get first chance at the travellers from the north, I get first chance at the ones from the south."

"Besides, Felicia, no one here can go into your shrine. All men!"

"So I see!" She appraised each of us in turn, smiling at Eco, letting her eyes linger on Davus, looking at me last.

"Oh, all right, Felicia, they're yours. I have to get back to the altar anyway." The priest looked up at me and unabashedly stuck out his empty palm.

"Ah, yes," I said. "The gratuity-for the upkeep of Jupiter's altar." I nodded to Eco, who produced a sum from his purse that was as usual a little too stingy. I frowned, and he tipped out another coin. I nodded, took the money and dropped it into the priest's open palm, where it vanished from sight with almost magical speed.

The priest, without another word, did the same.

"So, Felicia," I said, finding it impossible not to return the woman's beaming smile, "you must be the attendant at the shrine of the Good Goddess."

"I see to the needs of the female travellers who wish to stop and worship here, yes." "For a gratuity."

"Only an impious mortal expects to get something from the gods in return for nothing."

I nodded. "You and your brother seem to, have made quite a business of showing the local sights to visitors."

"People want to know what happened here on the Appian Way."

"Indeed they do."

"But how did you know that the two of us are brother and sister? Did Felix tell you?"

I had referred to the priest as her brother in a religious sense, not — suspecting they were actually kin. It was a family business, then, attending to the shrines and profiting from the tourists on this stretch of the Appian Way. There seemed to be a bit of sibling rivalry as well.

"I suppose my brother also told you that I used to be a temple prostitute in the service of Isis in my younger days," Felicia said. Not waiting for an answer, she raised her chin, adding even more height to her tall, narrow figure. "Yes, it's true. I was a temple prostitute. But today I serve only Fauna, the Good Goddess." She seemed quite proud of both facts.

"Fascinating," I said. "And did you happen to be on duty here that day?"

"The day of the battle? Oh, yes." "And did you see what happened?"

"Oh, yes!" It seemed to me that she kept her eyes unnaturally wide open, as people do when fighting off sleep or trying to frighten small children. She pointed towards Bovillae. "Milo's party came up the hill from Bovillae — such a lot of them!"

I raised an eyebrow. "All hairdressers and cosmeticians, from what I've heard."

"Not at all. Well, yes, there did seem to be a number of bath and bedchamber slaves — you should have heard the way they squealed when the fighting began! But there were plenty of armed men as well. In front, behind, all up and down the sides. Like a little army marching off to battle."

"Where was Milo?"

"Near the front of the procession, in a carriage with his wife." "Did they stop here?"

"At the shrine? No. Fausta Cornelia never stopped here."

"Really? I would assume that Sulla's daughter, a woman of such high standing, must play a leading role in the cult of the Good Goddess."

"In Rome, perhaps. But I find that most of the women who stop.at this shrine are from smaller towns and more humble circumstances. Many of the women from the city seem to consider themselves a bit above stopping at such a humble place to pay their respects to the goddess. They had rather attend to her in more lavish surroundings, I suppose."

"That hardly seems pious of them."

"I make no judgment." Her smile never wavered. Her eyes never narrowed. "But you wanted to know about the skirmish. Well, it began right there, directly in front of the shrine. I was sitting on the steps, warming myself in a bit of sunshine. I saw the whole thing."

"What hour was this?"

"About the ninth hour."

So far, every witness had confirmed Fulvia's account and refuted Milo, who placed the skirmish two hours later. "You're certain?"

"Yes. There's a sundial in the glade behind the shrine. I'd looked at it not long before."

"How did me skirmish begin?"

"Milo and his company were coming up the hill, Clodius and his men were coming down the hill."

"Clodius was out on the open road, then? He didn't suddenly appear out of the woods?" "No."

"He didn't lay an ambush?"

"Not at all."

"Was he on horseback?"

"Yes. So were a couple of his companions. The rest were on foot."

"Were there any women-or children with him?" "No. All grown men." "How many?"

"About twenty or twenty-five." "Armed?"

"They looked like a group of trained fighters, if that's what you mean. You seem to be more curious about such details than most of the travellers I've talked to."