“Molon, go mourn somewhere else,” I ordered. “But not too far away. I want to speak to you presently.” He nodded and walked off, wailing. It was annoying, but we are all bound by tradition and there was nothing to be done about it.
Within minutes Vinius was laid out on a shield and clad in his finery. His silvered helmet bore a magnificent side-to-side crest of scarlet horsehair and his greaves were polished brilliantly. His armor was especially splendid: a shirt of small scales, plated alternately with gold and silver so that they resembled the plumage of a fabulous bird. The phalerae were arranged over his body on their strap harness: nine thick, silver disks as broad as a man’s palm, each decorated with the head of a different god in high relief. In all, he looked greatly improved from the sordid, waterlogged corpse the Gaul had discovered. The funeral slaves had even been able to settle his face into an expression of stern serenity.
“What god has laid us under a curse?” mused a grizzled old veteran. “The First Spear murdered at the outset of a campaign! Was there ever a worse omen?”
“Quiet there, Nonius,” Mutius said. “Let’s take him back.” Three spears had been arranged beneath the shield and six centurions bent to grasp their ends, but at that moment I noticed something.
“Wait.” The six paused and I pointed to a band of pale skin around Vinius’s right wrist. I had grasped that wrist a few days before to stop him from flogging Burrus further and had felt a bracelet beneath my fingers. Among Romans only soldiers wear bracelets, and then only as awards for valor. “He wore a bracelet. Where is it?”
“You’re right,” Mutius said, rubbing his stubbled chin. “He won that in Africa when he was a common legionary. It was his first decoration for bravery. He always wore it.” He turned slightly. “Molon!” he barked. “Come here, you ugly cur!”
Molon shuffled over to us, trying to wail and smile at the same time. “Sir?”
“You were instructed to bring all your master’s decorations. Where is his bracelet?”
Molon was caught short. “But I brought everything! I don’t. .” His protestions ended in a yelp of pain as Mutius’s vinestock slashed across his shoulder.
“If you’ve stolen that bracelet I’ll have every inch of hide off your back, you misshapen wretch!”
“But it was not in his chest!” Molon cried, now huddled on his knees with his arms above his head, shielding it. “He never took it off! He even slept with it!”
“That’s enough,” I said as sternly as I could. “The killers probably took it. I want all of Vinius’s belongings put under seal and brought to the praetorium immediately.”
“It will be done,” Mutius said. “Let’s go.”
The six raised the shield to their shoulders and began to walk back toward the camp. The rest of the centurions followed in double-file and I walked behind them.
“Sir, do you want this?” I looked up and saw one of the funeral slaves holding out the braided noose. I was about to wave it away in disgust, then thought better of it. I took it and tucked it under my sword belt. If nothing else, I could add it to the macabre little collection of murderous souvenirs I kept at home.
I saw Molon shuffling along with the slaves, his head hanging in mock sadness. I signaled him to come to me.
“Well, sir,” he said, “that’s another one gone, eh?”
“Molon, I am only going to tell you this once: You are to keep yourself handy because I am going to question you. If I hear that you have run away, I shall use my special new authority to have our entire cavalry force run you down and bring you back in chains. As far as I am concerned, you are a suspect in your master’s murder. Do you know what that means?”
He shrugged. “It means the cross, of course. That may frighten slaves in Rome, but in this part of the world they really give some thought to torture and colorful executions. Every soldier in this army faces worse than the cross if he’s captured alive. Besides,” he smirked, “do you think these old vinegar drinkers will believe that someone like me could overpower someone like Titus Vinius?”
“Whoever did it wasn’t acting alone,” I said, “and it doesn’t take a giant to wield a dagger.”
“You’re stretching now, sir,” he said, sounding not quite so confident.
“Just keep in mind that you are under suspicion and behave accordingly. How many slaves did Vinius have?”
“You mean here in the camp with him?”
“Yes.”
“Just me and Freda. He has-had an estate back in Italy, but I never saw it.”
“No cook, valet, mule handler?”
“I’m all of ’em. And interpreter, too.”
“And what does Freda-well, I suppose I don’t need to ask what services she performed for him.” Molon grinned insinuatingly and I punched him in the side.
We came into the camp and I reflected that, at the very least, I wouldn’t have to report to the arms trainer that morning. Secretly, though, I was glad that Caesar had sentenced me to that torment. I had not realized how far out of condition I was, and that is not a good way to be when going into a war. I was now almost back to my old level of skill and endurance and I resolved to spend an hour or two each day at drill until I was as good as ever, if not better.
I told Molon to report to me at the praetorium along with the rest of Vinius’s property and he promised to do so. As I walked through the camp to return to my tent, I tried to judge the state of the soldiers. They were sprucing up their equipment for a formal parade, but there was nothing festive about them. They spoke in low voices and their expressions were downcast and fearful. They looked at the sky too much. That is a bad sign among soldiers because it means they are looking for omens, betraying a lack of confidence.
They were arranging the crests on their helmets, which among ordinary soldiers are worn only on parade and in battle. Likewise, they were stripping the oiled covers from their shields. Because of its layered construction, the scutum is very vulnerable to soaking. Thus it is kept covered much of the time, but on parade and in battle the covers are removed, revealing the brightly painted and decorated faces. But no amount of paint and gilding and feathers and horsehair could make this legion look like Rome’s best. The Gauls had not even showed up in force and already the Tenth looked like a beaten army.
I found Hermes waiting for me with breakfast, hot water, and decent wine. Sometimes he was not really such a burden.
“Is it true what I’ve been hearing?” he asked as I launched into breakfast.
“If you’ve heard the First Spear’s been killed, it’s true,” I said around a mouthful of hot bread. “Whether he was murdered hasn’t been established, but if the Gauls did him in they got him to dress oddly beforehand.”
“This is a strange army and an odd war,” Hermes pronounced. “I think we should go home.”
“If that were possible you’d have a hard time keeping up with me. And believe me: it’s bad to be with an army even in the best of wars. Now go along to your weapons drill and let me think.”
So I sat there in my folding camp chair and tried to think, but no thoughts would come. Exhausting days and short nights were taking their toll. The night before had been even shorter than most, with no more than an hour or two of sleep, and much excitement. And now another day was starting. And I did not like what I was facing.
Thus far, I had been no more than an oddity to the Tenth Legion. That was nothing new. I was something of an oddity in Rome. Now I was chief investigator and I would be the most unpopular man in Gaul. My investigation was likely to send several men to the executioner. My well-known sympathy with Burrus and his contubernium was going to cast my investigator’s impartiality into serious doubt. Everyone would assume that I was looking for a scapegoat to take the blame and exonerate my client.
Worst of all, everything so far pointed to that contubernium: they certainly had a motive to kill Vinius. I had seen with my own eyes the brutality with which he treated them, and I knew that they feared he was hounding them toward a mutiny that would earn them execution. They were on the north wall that night and had the opportunity to drag him out and throw him in the pond undetected by the rest of the legion. There were eight men, all of them tough, trained soldiers, well able to overpower and kill even such a man as Titus Vinius.