Walking back toward the praetorium I saw that a sizable crowd had gathered in the camp forum. I sauntered over to see what was going on, passing as I did the scorched patch of ground occupied the previous day by the funeral pyre of Titus Vinius. In the middle of the crowd I saw Labienus seated in a curule chair on a low platform with a half-dozen lictors before him, leaning on their fasces. Spotting Carbo among the onlookers, I went to see what was going on.
“The legatus is holding court,” he informed me. “A bunch of Provincial dignitaries and lawyers came in this morning and they need judgments on some long-standing cases.”
“In a military camp in a war zone?” I said.
“Life goes on,” Carbo told me, “even in wartime.”
It is one of the many anomalies of our governmental system that, when we sent a propraetor or proconsul to the territories, we expect one man to be both magistrate and military commander. That is why he takes a legatus; so that he can concentrate on the more crucial function, leaving the other to his assistant. But sometimes, as now, the same man had to fill both roles. I was surprised to see well-dressed Gauls among the dignitaries, including some Druids who looked like the same ones I had seen earlier.
If nothing else, this seemed an opportunity to have the praetorium to myself. I took a shortcut over the wall by the speaking platform and found the big tent deserted. First I walked a complete circuit of the tent to make sure that there were no possible onlookers, then I went inside.
I lifted the heavy chest onto the table and opened it with my shiny new key. I took out all the deeds and made a list of them, with full particulars including purchase price. Then, with all the papers and tablets heaped to one side, I picked up the box. It was still far too heavy, even taking the thick wood and iron strapping into account. I carried it to the door opening and set it down with sunlight flooding into the bottom. It was perfectly smooth and without any projections. I tried shifting the heavy rivets that held the strapping, but none of them moved.
I turned it over and examined the bottom. The chest rested on four stubby legs about an inch high, with leather pads glued to their feet. These I twisted one by one. The third one gave slightly. I took the chest back to the table and grasped the leg. Lifting that corner slightly, I turned the leg again. There was a click before it had completed one quarter of a revolution. The bottom of the chest sprang up a bit. I managed to get my dagger point between the bottom and the side and levered it up. The wooden slab came up easily. I was looking at what seemed to be a second chest bottom, this one made of solid gold.
After a while I remembered to breathe and took a closer look. There was a cross-hatching of lines on the otherwise regular slab of gold. I stuck my dagger point into an interstice and pried up a miniature gold brick the length and width of my forefinger. It lay astonishingly heavy in my hand and I saw in the rectangular hole left by it another layer of gold.
I replaced the gold bar, closed the false bottom, and twisted the trick chest leg into alignment. Then I went to the tent’s provision chest and helped myself to a goblet of Caesar’s wine, proud that I didn’t spill a drop.
Who knew about this treasure? Vinius seemed to have no family. Did he confide in that steward of his? If so, how intimately? Sneakily, unworthily, a compelling thought crept into my brain: There was wealth here sufficient to clear all my debts and finance my tenure of the notoriously expensive aedileship. I could repair the streets and renovate a temple or two and put on splendid Games and have plenty left over for fun. How difficult could it be to alter those deeds and transfer them all to my name? I could become a major landholder, completely independent for the first time in my life. The estates were widely scattered and no one would ever know about most of them. Wealth in land was rarely investigated. Wealth of any kind, for that matter.
“Into the wine supply a bit early, aren’t you?”
I jerked around. Labienus stood in the doorway. “I find it helps my ponderings,” I told him.
“Pour me a cup,” he said. “I could use a little inspiration.” He walked in. “I had to take a break before I ordered some summary executions that someone might sue me for when I return to Rome. Gods, how I detest provincial businessmen and publicani.” He glanced at the stack of deeds beside the strongbox. “Did those belong to Vinius? A lot of paperwork for a centurion.”
I handed him a cup. “He was a bit of a businessman himself.”
“Do yourself a favor,” Labienus advised. “Forget about this murder. I know that boy is one of your clients, but your family must have thousands of them. He won’t be missed, and the sooner those eight are executed, the sooner this army will return to normal. Normal is what you want with a war starting.”
“I can’t let it rest until I’m satisfied,” I told him. “And I’m far from satisfied.”
“What is the great mystery?” he demanded. “The man was a brute and he treated his men like animals. That particular contubernium caught the brunt of his stick and it drove them to an act of foolish desperation. Completely understandable, if unforgivable. Let them pay for it and be done with it.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“What doesn’t?” he said impatiently.
“The dagger, for one thing.”
“The dagger? What about it? Good, traditional weapon for killing people. Done all the time. Explain yourself.”
“We have here eight soldiers, at least three of whom would have taken part in the murder. Every one of them carries a gladius day and night. Why use a dagger when you can use a gladius? You know what a gladius stab is like. It looks like someone rammed a shovel through the body. People sometimes survive a dagger thrust, if no vital organs are pierced and the infection doesn’t kill them. A gladius thrust is certain death, which is why we adopted the murderous thing in the first place.”
“You have a point,” he admitted. “But men in such extremity often don’t think straight. And it was a conspiracy. Each may have wanted to deliver just a part of the killing so that the guilt would be evenly spread.”
“A valid objection,” I allowed, my lawyer’s training coming to the fore. “But I find it hard to believe that they would be so incautious in eliminating a man as dangerous as Titus Vinius.” This legalistic fencing was helping me to keep my mind off all that gold in the bottom of the box. Even so, my scalp was sweating. “And the business with the strangler’s noose. It just doesn’t sound soldierly. I think these men would have done the job neatly and quickly, had they been inclined to kill him. And there is the way he was dressed.”
“That is an oddity.”
“The accused men say that the last time they saw him he was with you on the reviewing stand at evening parade. Did you see him after that?”
“Let’s see. . he came back to the praetorium and conferred for a while with Caesar and some Gauls-”
“Gauls? What Gauls?”
“Some of the ones out there now. They were hounding Caesar for some decisions about their cases, because they know that once the war is on there’ll be no time for holding assizes.”
“What are their cases concerned with?”
“The usual,” he shrugged. “Contracts for public works, which are in doubt because of this extraordinary five-year commission; some killings that would expand into blood feuds if we allowed these Provincial Gauls to revert to their ancestral ways; a number of land tenures that are in dispute, that sort of thing.”
The mention of land made my ears twitch, but land in Gaul didn’t seem to interest Titus Vinius. It occurred to me to wonder why. The province held splendid farmlands and they could be had cheaper than any in Italy. Labor was cheap as well. There was always the uncertainty connected with the upcoming war, but if that was his reason, it displayed a disappointing lack of confidence in Roman arms on the part of a senior centurion.