It was, however, a private home, and the citizen was there to prove it. His presence was a primitive outrage in this most civilised of rooms. He was lying, stretched out, face down upon the floor, like a kind of bizarre mosaic. Part of his toga had been pulled aside, revealing his shoulder and under-tunic. I could glimpse the bindings around the ribs, where the earlier wound had been dressed, there was a reddened bruise on the back of the exposed arm and the hilt of a dagger was still visible, driven in under the shoulder blade. A dreadful seeping stain was making an additional red-brown stripe on his curial robe, before running down to mingle with the black, brown and white of the dancing deities depicted in the tiles.
Maximilian had stopped short just inside the doorway, staring, and was gnawing the middle joint of his finger. The impression he gave was not so much of grief as of consternation, like a pupil waiting for his paedagogus knowing he has failed to construe his text. He did not look in our direction.
Marcus nodded to me, and I stole forward, bent down and tentatively raised the head. It felt absurdly heavy, as if each grizzled iron-grey curl was made of iron indeed. The head was half-turned towards me, and as I raised it I could see the face. The jaw had dropped open: there was blood-flecked foam on the lips, and a pair of fishlike eyes stared at me, lifeless. The effect was grotesque, a kind of macabre astonishment, as if death had taken an unwarrantable liberty by arriving so unexpectedly. I lowered the head hastily.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he? The slaves were right.’ That was Maximilian, his voice sharp and childish.
I got to my feet. ‘It seems so.’
‘They’ll blame me. You watch! Julia and Sollers. They’ll say it was my fault he was unattended. Just because I sent the slaves away from the door. I didn’t want them listening in. But you’re my witnesses. I only came to ask him for money. .’
‘We are your witnesses that you were here,’ I pointed out gently. ‘We cannot testify to what you said. We have only your word for that.’
‘Anyway,’ Marcus said slowly, ‘you won’t need to ask him for money now, will you, Maximilian? You will be free to make your own decisions. I think you said he was intending to disinherit you. Presumably that means he hadn’t done so yet — and now, of course, he never will.’
Maximilian brightened. ‘That’s true, isn’t it? So his fortune will come to me. Or at least most of it. You’re right. I’m no longer under tutelage. No more measly peculium — he never gave me enough to live on. Well, much good it has done him! Now I can spend money on what I like.’ He sounded delighted. I wondered if he realised that Marcus had just made out a very good case for suspecting him of murder. Parricide by disaffected sons who hope to gain financial independence must be one of the most frequent crimes in the Empire.
Maximilian, however, seemed oblivious. ‘I wonder how much money there is?’
The spectacle of this arrogant and idle young man greedily assessing the wealth of the father who lay dead at his feet was, to say the least, singularly unattractive. I knew Marcus, and when I saw him crisping his fingers, I knew that he, too, longed to land a satisfying punch on that peevish, spoiled face.
My patron said sharply, ‘We shan’t know that until the will is publicly read in the forum. There may be heavy expenses.’ The tone of his voice suggested that, under the circumstances, he hoped the inheritance would be severely depleted. ‘No doubt your father has left instructions for memorial games, or even a building to be erected in his honour, and, of course, there may be co-heirs. Someone may even enter a querela against the testament, on the grounds that your father intended to revoke it.’
Maximilian smirked. ‘It would need seven witnesses to prove that. Besides, Julia wouldn’t take it to trial. If a will is found to be invalid, most of the money tends to end up in the hands of the treasury, and then she wouldn’t get any either.’
‘Then let’s hope for your sake that it isn’t invalid already. I presume he has made a new will since he remarried? Otherwise she can claim under the praetor’s edict.’
There was a pause while Maximilian took this in. Then he said, rather petulantly, ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. But I’m his next of kin.’ His face fell. ‘I suppose that also means I’ll be responsible for all these contracts he’s entered into. The gods alone know how many denarii that will run to. And I’ll have to succeed him as decurion, and that will be more expense. Always supposing that that woman hasn’t spent it all, anyway. Oh, Mercury! Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.’
He was interrupted by a voice from the door behind us. ‘Maximilian, I see, is demonstrating his usual filial piety. I hear that his father has been stabbed again. Maximilian’s grief is truly heart-rending, don’t you find?’ He came forward as he spoke.
I recognised him at once. He was a tallish, grey-haired man, slightly balding and running a little to fat, but with that unforgettable mobile, intelligent face, and the shrewdest pair of eyes I have ever seen. He was not wearing a toga today — not even a plain white one like mine — though as an ex-army surgeon he was obviously entitled to one. Instead he wore a long amber robe like an outsized tunic, tied at the waist. Even so, he had an air of such professional competence about him that even Marcus stepped back and allowed him to speak. ‘I am Hermogenes Valerius Sollers, citizens. The slaves told me I was needed.’ He stopped, staring at the body where it lay. ‘Great Hermes! What is he doing on the floor?’
‘He has been stabbed,’ Marcus said, rather unnecessarily, since the fact was only too evident. ‘He was crawling to the door when the servants found him.’
A look of genuine horror crossed Sollers’s face. ‘Crawling to the door! Then he was alive after he was stabbed! Poor man, how he must have suffered. Did he have time. . did he manage to tell them who had done this to him?’
Marcus shook his head. ‘It seems not.’
Sollers said, ‘But if he had strength enough to crawl, perhaps there is still hope. Excuse me, citizens. I must examine him.’ He brushed past us and went to kneel beside Quintus. ‘My poor old friend, what has happened here?’ Deftly, he began to run his hands over the body, lifting back the tunic to examine the wound.
I watched him as he worked, the clever hands probing the wound, and I was struck once again by his skill. Greek-trained, I guessed, as many doctors were. It was not a difficult deduction, given that he swore by Hermes and spoke slightly accented, although excellent, Latin, but I was pleased with myself for making it. His name, of course, pointed in the same direction, but that was less reliable evidence, since he had probably adopted that when he achieved Roman citizenship.
Wherever he had trained, he was good. The examination could not have been more gentle and painstaking if the body under his hands had been that of his own brother. I could see why Quintus valued him as a companion. Many wealthy men boast of keeping a private physician in their homes, not only to oversee the family’s health, but also to dazzle dinner guests with learned discussions of philosophy and science. Unlike many of his fellow doctors, I thought, Sollers would acquit himself with equal distinction in either role.
We watched him in silence now, as he continued his grim work. At last he got to his feet.
‘We are too late, citizens. He is dead.’ He examined his own bloodstained hands with dismay. I noticed that some of Quintus’s blood had stained his sleeve. ‘This is a tragic welcome to this house. But I am impolite, citizens. And Maximilian, too. What can we say? In the name of my poor dead friend, I greet you. You are Marcus Aurelius Septimus, of course, and you, citizen, must be the pavement-maker. I have heard of you.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘Should I, do you think, remove that dagger, Excellence? We must send for the slaves to arrange Quintus’s body for the funeral, and it is not seemly to leave him with that weapon in him.’