Lindsey Davis - Graveyard of the Hesperides

People who lived on the other Seven Hills regarded the Aventine as foreign; for Morellus, born and bred there, ours was a sophisticated haven; other hills were alien places. Their occupants all had unspeakable characteristics, with no rule of law applying to their unregulated streets.

“Morellus, you ever-comical swine,” I chastised him, bantering as we generally did. “You speak as if mass killers are a professional group, with traditions, apprenticeships, annual guild dinners. And no doubt a funeral club. How handy for when they have fatal fights in dodgy bars!”

“Whatever went down here,” Macer of the Third carried on conversing with his colleague in what he perceived as a fair-minded way, which meant ignoring me, “after the fracas ended, with one lot all lying quietly dead, someone rapidly got organized. Someone hoofed off for spades. Maybe there was building work nearby so they could nick tools, but they probably put them back afterward or a big theft would have been reported later. Questions would be asked.” I noticed Faustus huff quietly, as if in his experience the vigiles never took much interest in thefts of building tools. “While the corpses cooled, a group of people methodically made graves. They dropped in the bodies. They cleaned up. They flattened down the earth. They rearranged the tables and seats to look like normal.”

“They wiped down the tables and patted the dog,” I added satirically.

“I bet they unsealed an amphora and had a bloody big drink!” scoffed Morellus.

“Of course the killings may have been planned,” Faustus brooded. “Some old quarrel. Weapons and burial tools may have been collected earlier.”

“Yet nobody talks about a feud like that existing,” I reminded him. “The only rumor says the landlord murdered Rufia. It sounds like a domestic. All too usual. Five men must also have disappeared the same night, but when this rumor comes up, who mentions them?”

“Out-of-towners,” Morellus answered at once. “Nobody cares.”

Macer agreed. “Grockles.” It was a term my father used for visitors to Rome who came for business or pleasure, gaping at sights and having their travel bags stolen.

“Easy pickings,” I conceded. “You shout ‘Look at that!’ then pick up their luggage while their heads are meekly turning. Alternatively, you lure them into a bent dice game or fleece them at Find the Nymph under the Cup. Fair enough-but Morellus, Macer, nobody needs to murder them.”

“And the barmaid serving them,” Faustus backed me up.

“So did Rufia get in the way?” I pondered. “Had these five men given her a big tip, so she liked them, then she objected to them being set upon and got bludgeoned herself for her pains?”

“Had her head cut off for interfering?” Faustus mused.

“A woman barging into men’s business,” I agreed sourly. I had seen that a few times. “She received double punishment.”

“We don’t know that, love … So, officers,” Faustus asked slowly, “when you look at these bones, nothing tells you how the victims were killed?”

Of course I had asked that at the start, but those bastards Macer and Morellus took him more seriously. They let him see they thought he was being obsessive, however. “Very careful garrotting could leave no signs,” said Macer, now playing the silly ass.

“Or extremely neat throat-cutting,” added Morellus. This disreputable pair had by now mastered working as a tight team. Either alone would have been a trial to a curious aedile; together they were a boot-faced, two-man pack. Their verdict was deemed to be expert, its unhelpfulness was final. According to them nobody could get any further with this.

From experience, I felt that if we mulled over it until another day dawned, new ideas might come.

All of us were tired, depressed and aware that there was very little to steer us toward what really happened here, let alone who might be pursued for it. The two vigiles officers lost interest. They looked at one another. Each gave the other a slight nod, some well-established private code. Morellus, since he knew us, made it official. He announced that Faustus and I were the best people to investigate.

“Let us know.”

“Keep in touch.”

The two useless brutes went off, almost arm in arm, heading to join their men for refreshments down at the Romulus.

We made no move to follow them.

At last we could mull this over together in private.

Tiberius and I were silent for a time. He and I never needed to be constantly in conversation. One of the first things I ever heard about him was that he was a listener, a man who made up his mind before pronouncing. This is rare. Most give a rash opinion before they hear the full facts. Usually they get it wrong.

We paced around the yard together, gazing down at each skeleton as we reassessed these secret burials. The layout, depth, consistency of them. The oddities. The disarticulated leg. The missing head.

“The men are all of a type,” Faustus said at last. “Not tall, stocky build.”

When I got down low to look closely at number four, with his severed lower leg, I spotted that his other, the one still attached, had a markedly deformed bone. “Look here, Tiberius. This man suffered an accident in his lifetime. His remaining leg had been badly crushed. He had a horrible fracture, as if something disastrously heavy fell on him-a millstone, a huge piece of masonry-bones were broken, a compound fracture that probably stuck through the flesh. He must have been lucky to survive. But it had all mended long before he died.”

Tiberius took it further: “He would have had a very conspicuous, awkward gait. This man stood out. Everybody would have known him. I wonder … Albia, if we think Rufia’s head was taken away to prevent possible identification, did somebody also decide to remove the damaged leg for the same reason?”

“They cut off the wrong one!” I exclaimed.

Tiberius let himself grin, then grew more serious. “Could be understandable. We say they were well-organized, yet killing six people has unimaginable horrors. There must have been huge tension by the point of the burials. A mistake was made. Let’s face it, even surgeons have been known to carry out wrong amputations. Someone realized the error, but they couldn’t face hacking off a second leg, so they cursed, gave up, and tossed the wrong one back into the trench after the body, hoping for the best…”

“Gruesome.” While I still crouched beside the limping man, I swung around to make comparisons with his next neighbor. “Same wear on their teeth. Same diet.”

Tiberius followed my reasoning at once. “Same origin?”

“Likely, though it’s nothing exceptional. Same habits, certainly. Gritty bread. Fruit. Acid wine followed by acidic belching.”

“You make them sound lovable fellows!”

“Who all drank in bars,” I reminded him, with a smile.

“But you are not going so far as to identify their home village?” He was teasing me.

“Could even be Rome. My point is, they all hung around together, leading the same lifestyle. In the same trade, I bet. And somehow they must have made a common enemy.”

“But was it Old Thales?” Tiberius now frowned. “Did Thales himself, helped by his staff, attack these five men? If so, why?”

“Had the five men somehow killed Rufia, so Thales ordered punishment killings?”

“Surely we have no reason to believe Rufia meant that much to him?” I made a note to start asking people just what she did mean to the landlord, while Tiberius continued suggesting alternatives: “Or did a completely separate group have a set-to with these fellows, while Thales either kept out of the way or stood on the sidelines pleading with all parties to stop fighting in his bar?”