With the help of Cocceius, they hauled the dead body up and laid him on his back on the earth floor. Ferox went to one of the barrels, and gestured to the others to help because it was almost full and very heavy. They tipped water onto the freedman, pouring some, stopping, then letting another wave clean him.
‘That will do,’ the medicus said, and began to examine him.
‘Well, the poor bugger did not choke to death,’ he announced after only a cursory glance. ‘That’s a mercy.’ He held up the front of the man’s tunic, poking his fingers through a tear in the stained wool. ‘Let’s have some more water. No, better yet, soak a sponge.’ Ferox did as instructed and then watched as the doctor half pulled, half dragged the tunic over the corpse’s head. Taking the sponge he washed the chest clean around a small but deep wound just underneath the ribcage. ‘Neat job.’
Ferox nodded, and was not surprised when after a thorough search the doctor declared that there were no other injuries. ‘Would have killed him instantly.’
‘A pugio?’
‘Maybe. Any sharp knife really. Whoever it was stood very close and knew what they were doing.’
‘A woman?’
The medicus snorted. ‘You didn’t know him, did you?’ He took the sponge and cleaned lower down on the body. ‘No women for this one. Not ever, I’d guess. They usually castrate them when they are young.’ He seemed genuinely moved. ‘Poor bastard. Hasn’t had much luck in life, has he?’
‘Have you ever met anyone on the procurator’s staff who was poor?’
‘Not much good if you can’t enjoy yourself.’ He sighed. ‘Anything else to do now?’
‘No, that is it for the moment. Have you got somewhere in the hospital where you can have him cleaned up and take another look?’
‘Aye. I’ll see to it. Doubt there’s anything more to see, but will do my best.’
‘I know,’ Ferox said. ‘Still, you know how it is when one of the emperor’s servants is involved. Everything by the book. There was a work party waiting when I got here, so you will have plenty of help.’ He went to the remaining barrel and washed his arms and as much as the rest of himself as he could. It was not much of an improvement and disturbing the filth only seemed to stir up the smell. ‘Cocceius.’
‘Sir.’
‘Am I right in thinking that you didn’t kill this man?’
‘Sir?’ The boy was genuinely puzzled. Like most auxiliaries these days, he did not carry a pugio. ‘Thought not. In that case you are dismissed. Get cleaned up and report to wherever you should be now.’
‘Sir!’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘Am I in trouble, sir?’
Ferox grinned. ‘Shouldn’t think so. You might want to practise catching slippery ladies though!’
‘Yes, sir!’
After the soldier had gone Ferox had a thought. ‘Tell the fatigue party to search for any knives or daggers in here,’ he told the medicus. ‘Doubt they will find anything, but no harm in trying.’
‘Any theories?’
‘Typical Greek!’ Ferox chuckled.
‘I’m from Leptis Magna.’
‘Even worse, you Africans can actually think in a straight line! What do you reckon happened?’
‘Someone murdered him.’
Ferox slapped his forehead. ‘Eureka! Now I need a bath more than he ever did. I just hope the noble tribune has given the necessary orders.’
III
A BATH WAS ready in the simple but private room maintained by the prefect and his wife in their house. Before he was permitted inside, Ferox was taken to the courtyard of the praetorium and instructed to dunk himself thoroughly in a tall and wide barrel filled with water. His mind, always prone to wandering away, thought of the story of the Hound, one of the great heroes claimed by his tribe and just about everyone else. The stories were almost the same apart from some of the names and the identity of the enemy wherever you went and he had even heard ones very similar told in Gaul. After one battle, where the Hound had gone into his battle frenzy and butchered hundreds of enemies, he returned to the stronghold still lusting after slaughter. Terrified that he would kill all the men he found, even his kin, they sent out bare-breasted women to meet him. Modestly, the young hero turned aside – a part of the story that had never made much sense – and while he was distracted the men grabbed him, and plunged him into three barrels of water. The first burst asunder, the second boiled, and the third merely bubbled as the frenzy left him.
The only woman in the courtyard was an elderly slave, fully clad and smirking as the centurion stripped off his tunic and climbed into the water. Philo waited impatiently with a fresh cloak and a pair of the wooden slippers worn in a bath-house. The prefect’s private bath did not have the heated floor, something impractical in a timber building, but when he reached the pool and shuddered as he lowered himself into the hot water, it was with an almost spiritual joy. Philo fussed, until Ferox sent him away, promising to let himself be shaved once he had finished. A hint that the boy was to make discreet enquiries among the other slaves and freedmen put a jauntiness in his step as he left. Philo dearly loved to be useful and thrived on gossip.
An hour later, clean shaven, dressed in his finest tunic, new breeches and best boots, Ferox was ushered in to a room Cerialis kept as an office. Only the prefect and tribune were there, which was surprising because normally the prefect’s cornicularius would keep a record of the meeting. After a few questions about his wound and his welfare they let him report. They appeared to have known or guessed much of it already, and the fact that the freedman had been stabbed rather than smothered made little real difference. It was murder either way.
‘Was it the woman?’ Crispinus asked once he had finished.
‘She may have killed him, but I very much doubt she could have heaved him down into the drain. He was well built, and a corpse is always awkward to handle. So either she had help or she got there after the real murderer had gone. The floor was too scuffed from soldiers’ boots for there to be any clear prints.’
‘Any idea when he was killed?’
‘Sometime during the night.’ Ferox doubted that the medicus would be able to make any better guess even after examining the corpse more carefully. ‘The body was no longer stiff, so he probably had been there a few hours. Hard to say any more than that.’
‘Indeed.’
Ferox could sense that both men were uncomfortable, even nervous, and some of that was surely because the dead man was no ordinary freed slave, but one of the emperor’s household and a servant of the procurator. The procurator of Britannia was an equestrian, just like Cerialis and several score other officers, officials and wealthy people in the province. Lucius Neratius Marcellus was the legatus Augusti pro praetore of Britannia, the supreme representative of the emperor in the province, a former consul and a distinguished member of the Senate. Yet the procurator was also the emperor’s man, charged with overseeing the finances in the area, from taxes to the revenue of imperial estates, and was in direct communication with the emperor. Friction between legates and procurators was not uncommon, especially under the more nervous emperors. Back in the days of Domitian, it was the procurator who had reported on the activities of Sallustius Lucullus, then legate in Britannia, accusing him of dangerous ambitions, and citing as evidence his naming a new pattern of lancea after himself. That episode ended in the legate’s execution. Even his bodyguard, who carried the offending javelins, had been formed into a special unit as a punishment and sent to Moesia on the Danube. What was written in the procurator’s confidential reports mattered a lot, even under the enlightened rule of Trajan.