Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

Flavia Fronta nodded again. I cannot say she looked crestfallen. She was aggrieved that I had forced this out of her, and she seemed to believe that stealing the precious neck collar had been her right.

'Explain now how it happened. You must have pulled Verovolcus at least partially out of the well to get at it?'

'That's right.' She was bolder now. We had the torque. Deception was pointless. Women are such realists.

'Verovolcus was still alive. He must have been heavy, and weakened perhaps. I dare say he was struggling. Pulling him out just enough must have taken some effort.'

'I may be short but I'm strong,' the waitress boasted. 'I spend half my life shifting full barrels and amphorae. I dragged him up and hauled the torque off his neck.'

'He was still alive. You admit that?'

'He damn well was. He made a big fuss about me wrenching off his gold.'

I tried to moderate my distaste for her. 'Verovolcus was meant to survive being dunked in the water. But you had stolen his torque and he saw you; so then -'

'I had no choice,' responded the waitress, as if I were an idiot to ask. 'I shoved him down the well again. And I held him there until he stopped kicking.'

I turned to the governor and procurator. 'Always a good feeling when you charge the right suspect with murder, don't you think?' They looked rueful.

Flavia Fronta's confession had destroyed our viable case against Florius. On murder we would have had him. Putting him before a jury on charges of racketeering would be messier, and with clever lawyers to confuse the issues, the outcome would be much more unpredictable.

'I suppose I should have hidden the torque better,' the woman groaned.

'No, you should never have taken it. King Togidubnus gave that torque as a present to his retainer. The King will be pleased to have it returned. But I don't hold out much hopes for your nice little wine shop in the south.'

The waitress would go to the arena. The death of an unrepentant murderess in the jaws of bears or big wild cats would be a huge draw for an audience. She did not seem to have realised her fate. I left it for the governor and his staff to bring that home to her.

To Petronius Longus I broke the bitter news that we had solved a crime but lost his witness.

There was one sad task remaining: Helena, Petronius and I attended the funeral of Chloris.

Maia, still shaky after her bout with Norbanus, refused to come with us. She had harsh words for all female fighters and worse for my old girlfriend. She even blamed Helena for attending.

'This is noble, Helena – but nobility stinks!'

'She died at my feet,' Helena Justina reproved her quietly.

Gladiators are outcast from society. Their infamy means their graves lie not just beyond the town, as happens with all adult interments, but outside the public cemetery too. Established and wealthy groups of fighters may buy their own tombs, but Londinium so far possessed no townships of elaborate mausoleums for the dead. So her friends chose to bury Chloris in open ground, with an antique and peculiarly northern ritual.

It was a familiar walk to the site. We went westwards along the Decumanus Maximus, crossing the central stream and then out past the arena and the bath house. Londinium had no walls and no formally ploughed pomerium to mark its boundary, but we knew we were at the town limits. Beyond the military area, we reached a cemetery, one which contained some grand memorials. We walked through it, noticing a massive inscription, set up by his wife, to Julius Classicianus, the previous procurator of finance, from whom Hilaris had taken over after he died in service. Up and over the hill, we came to sloping ground that looked out across another tributary of the Thamesis. There, separate from the official tombs and monuments and facing the empty countryside, the funeral party met.

Chloris was the founder and leader of her group, cut down in unfair combat. It called for particular honour. Her body was brought at daybreak, the bier carried slowly by women. Her companions formed a sombre ceremonial escort. Other mourners, mainly women also, had come from all parts of town. They included a priestess of Isis, to whose cult many gladiators are attached. There was a temple of the Egyptian goddess on the south bank of the river in Londinium, incongruously. I knew Chloris had barely honoured her own Tripolitanian gods, but some of her companions found the attendance of the priestess appropriate. Anubis, the dog-headed Egyptian guide to the Underworld, equates to Rhadamanthus or Mercury, those messengers of the gods who officiate over deaths in the arena. So it was in a heavy fug of pine incense, and accompanied by the rattle of a sistrum, that the bier reached the burial site.

Outside the perimeter of the cemetery we found a carefully dug, straight-sided grave pit. Above this had been constructed an elaborate pyre of crossed logs, built up in rectangles. The timbers were meticulously laid. They would burn hot and they would burn long.

Deep in the pit were placed new lamps and incense burners, symbols of light and ritual. There were a few personal treasures and gifts from her friends too. Someone had washed Helena's blue stole and Chloris lay upon it. If Helena noticed, she gave no sign of approval or otherwise.

Chloris looked older than I wanted to remember her. A fit woman in the prime of life who had chosen a harsh but spectacular career. However desperate it seemed, she might have hoped to win her fights and be acclaimed, with wealth and fame. Instead, she had been cut down for her independent spirit. Today she had been carefully robed, her ghastly wounds concealed. She wore a long dark gown, crossed on the breast with a costly gold body chain, bejewelled at its centre. Even in death, she looked expensive, honed, sexually dangerous, troubling. I had not wished her dead, yet I was half relieved to be leaving her here.

'Who bought her the jewel?' I wondered.

'Nobody.' Helena glanced at me. 'She will have bought it for herself. Don't you see, Marcus – that was the point for her?'

As the flames were lit, her colleagues stood around her, beautiful and disciplined. Some wept, but most were still and grim. They knew they all faced death in the life they had chosen. Yet this death had been untimely; it demanded a special requiem. Heraclea, statuesque and blonde, took the torch first and fired a corner of the pyre. The sweet, aromatic scent of pine cones intensified. A thin trail of smoke curled upwards, then the flames began to take. She handed on the torch. One by one the women touched the logs, circling the pyre. A low moan filled the air. Brief farewells were spoken. Even Helena moved away from Petronius and me and took her turn with the brand. He and I did not. It would have been unwelcome.

We just stood with the smoke gusting around us, winding its way into our lungs, our hair and our clothes.

The flames would burn all day and night. Slowly the layers of logs would fragment and sink into one another. At the end, the charred remains would fall into the pit, flesh melted, bones burned to fragility yet virtually intact. No one would collect the ashes and bones. This would be her perpetual resting place.

Eventually I went forward alone to say my farewells. After a while, the woman called Heraclea attended me like a hostess.

'Thank you for coming, Falco.'

I did not want to talk but politeness forced it. 'This is a sad day. What will happen to your group now?'

Lowering her voice, Heraclea nodded to the priestess of Isis. 'See her with the priestess?' There was a richly clad young matron alongside, one of those holy hangers-on whom temples attract, all dangling silver jewellery. 'New patron. There were always several on the sidelines, widows or wealthy wives of merchants. They want the thrill of the blood but if they sponsor us, they can avoid being thought to lust after men. Amazonia said -'