Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"Perhaps his city house has secret passageways in the walls as well."

"It wouldn't surprise me. More work for Cyrus the architect!"

We ascended more stairs, which were lit by tiny openings with direct sunshine, indicating that the stairwells were located at one end of the building. We walked down more narrow corridors, looked into more cavernous, gloomy, unfinished chambers. At last there was a change in the pattern and we found ourselves in a labyrinthine passage that snaked this way and that. We were somewhere in the upper, older part of the villa now, where the addition of a hidden passage between the existing walls had required the architect Cyrus to exercise considerable ingenuity. The rooms now revealed by the spyholes were adorned with opulent decorations and furnishings, full of all the things that make a home — except people to live there. The rooms were silent and still. Even on a sunshiny day such as this, with the first hint of an early spring in the air, all the shutters were closed, casting the whole house in a deep-shadowed gloom.

At last Mopsus gestured for us to stop. "Here — this is where we were when it happened."

"Who was here?"

"Androcles and I. And Publius, of course, hiding from Halicor. Publius thought it would be great fun to spy on the grown-ups. He could hardly stop giggling whenever he looked through the hole."

The nearest spyhole was at eye level for a boy, closer to waist high on a man, so that I had to stoop to look through it. The floor of the secret passage was substantially higher than that of the adjacent rooms, so that I actually found myself looking down into the room beyond. It appeared to be an office for transacting business and keeping records. Pigeonhole scroll cases lined one wall, but were mostly empty, their contents scattered on the floor along with various writing materials — wax tablets, styluses, jars of ink and sheets of papyrus spattered and smeared with something that looked more like blood than ink. The room reminded me of my own ransacked study.

"So the three of you were here," I said. "What did you see?"

"Halicor and the foreman, talking about Publius," said Mopsus.

"And not too nicely, either!" added Androcles.

"What did they say?"

"Alot of things," said Mopsus. "They talked about how impossible it was going to be to control Publius, especially with his father gone.

They argued. The foreman said it was Halicor's fault for letting Publius out of his sight. Halicor said that he was a tutor, not a bodyguard, and it wasn't his job to keep Publius safe, and that was what the master really cared about. That sort of thing. Lots of yelling. Grown-up talk." "And then?"

In the deep shadows of the corridor I saw Androcles's eyes glitter with tears as he stepped behind his older brother, holding on to him like a shield. Mopsus straightened his back and put on a hard face. "Then there was yelling from somewhere else in the house. I don't think Halicor and the foreman heard it at first, because they were yelling at each other. Then the door flew open, so hard it banged against a shelf and knocked some things off. Men ran in: They carried swords-"

"And there was already blood on the swords!" said Androcles, peering around his brother's shoulder.

Mopsus wrinkled his brow. "And then Milo came in — " "How did you know it was Milo?"

"Because that's what Halicor called him. 'Milo!' He shouted the name as if Hades himself had come up through the floor. I whispered to Publius, 'Who is Milo?' and he whispered back, 'The worst man in the world, except for Cicero!' "

"Clodius was already teaching the boy to know his enemies," observed Eco.

I nodded. "And then what happened?"

"Milo and his men swarmed into the room like bees. They pushed Halicor and the foreman against the wall and poked their swords at them. Milo was angry. 'Where is he?' he shouted. 'Where is Publius Clodius?' And the foreman said, 'He's not here, we don't know where he is,' but that just made Milo angrier.*You!' he said to Halicor. 'Who are you?' And Halicor said, 'I'm just a tutor, the boy's tutor, but the boy has run off, he's hiding from me.' And Milo shouted at him to shut up and knocked him down and kept yelling, 'Where is Publius Clodius?' And then they were stabbing the foreman, and cutting off pieces of Halicor's fingers-"

"It was awful," said Androcles. "I thought I was going to throw up, but my belly was empty. I was glad when they dragged Halicor and the foreman into the hall. At least we couldn't see what they were doing."

"But we could hear the screaming," said Mopsus. "We all covered our ears. Poor Publius. He could have spoken up, yoiisee, shouted out, 'Here I am!' Maybe he could have saved Halicor."

I shook my head. "If the men came for Publius and found him, they'd have had no reason to leave Halicor alive."

"What would they have done to Publius?" said Androcles.

"Taken for him for a hostage, probably," said Eco grimly. "Or else finished him as they finished his father."

"Two of the men were so big," said Mopsus, shivering as he remembered. "Even bigger than the elephant here. They were the ones who did most of the cutting."

Eco looked at me. "Eudamus…"

"… and Birria. Never one without the other."

"Halicor screamed and screamed," said Mopsus. "I bet he would have told them where Publius was, if he'd known! But he didn't, so they just kept cutting off pieces."

His little brother began to weep. I put my arm around him.

"We couldn't even run away, or else they might have heard us," said Mopsus. "We just had to stay very still. Finally, the screaming stopped." Mopsus shivered. "The three of us just stayed here, afraid to even whisper. Every now and then I looked through the spyhole, thinking that maybe Halicor or the foreman would come back, but they didn't. Androcles started whining, saying he had to take a piss — "

"No I didn't! It was Publius who had to go!"

"Whatever. Yes, maybe it was Publius. But I told him he would be crazy to go outside, because Milo and his men were probably looking for him all over the place. And then I think we all started to wonder about the master, because how was it that Milo had dared to come breaking into the house, and why hadn't the master come back to stop him? I think we all started to realize that something really terrible must have happened, but I didn't want to say anything, and neither did Publius, I guess, because he was very quiet It was dark by that time, and there didn't seem to be anyone in the house at all. We got very hungry. Finally I sent Androcles to sneak into the kitchen to get us some food — "

"Because you were afraid to go yourself!"

"No, because I had to stay and protect Publius. And finally Androcles came back and said that some of the slaves were hiding in the stable, and at least two of them had been killed besides Halicor and the foreman, and some of the bodyguards who left with the master that afternoon had come back and they were wounded because there had been a terrible battle with Milo, and they said that they didn't know where the master was, but that he'd been hurt and gone to Bovillae but wasn't there any longer, and all the men who had been with him were dead…"

"I think Publius was very brave," said Androcles quietly. "He didn't even cry. And he wouldn't eat anything. He said Mopsus and I could eat all the food I'd brought back."

"So we spent the night hiding in the secret passageways, even though it was awfully cold and dark. And the next day, the mistress sent some men from Rome for Publius, and then later she shut down the house. Everyone left except for us."

"And those lazy guards," said Androcles. "They're probably awake by now. They'll be wondering where we are."

"Let them wonder," said his brother. "Maybe they'll think the witches came and got us. Imagine if that happened, and it was their fault, sleeping when they should be keeping watch. They'll be worried sick."