Scowler was supervising all this with disdain. He hadn’t moved an inch. When they had finished, he turned to me again. ‘Well, that’s it, citizen. We’ll leave you to it now. There’s a couple more corpses that we have to fetch. A pair of brigands who have been put to death — we’ve got to pick their bodies up before we put these in the pit.’ He jammed his helmet on and turned back to his men. ‘Don’t just stand there lounging, you useless sons of whores! We’ve got more work to do. Get that horse down to a place where you can turn the cart around.’ And he went swaggering off.
I watched them inching down the street, then went back to the shop, blew out the tapers — which had been thrust aside, though fortunately not where they would start a fire — and put the outside shutter for the doorway up. I was going to go to the bake-house to find Lucius’s mother now. Everything else would simply have to wait.
With a chill feeling, I picked up the greasy tray, which was still lying on the stones outside my shop. What would happen to the poor woman without her son? Who would bring her remnants from the market now? I considered for a moment, then went back and picked up the turnips too.
Seven
It did not take me very long to reach the place where Lucius had lived. I even half-recalled the route, although it was a long time since I’d visited this ramshackle area of the town, which was constantly flooded when the Sabrina rose.
The dwelling was every bit as squalid as I had remembered it, a broken-down hovel amongst the ruins of what had once been a house, now with only a piece of tattered cloth across the front to form a door, and — in place of what had been handsome tiles — woven reeds as a rough sort of thatch. Behind this stood a fire-blackened conical stone building which was the oven, or so-called baking-house. A well-worn path ran in between the two, among a mass of tangled weeds and fallen masonry, interspersed with the usual litter of a public street: bits and pieces of broken pot, rusty nails, and fish and chicken bones.
I saw the old woman as soon as I approached. She was small and wizened, and even thinner than her son had been in life, but she was impressively energetic for her age. When I arrived, she was by the baking-house, hacking ferociously at a piece of tree, apparently in order to make it fit the oven fire. She had obviously been out earlier collecting fuel for it, because there was a carefully created pile lying close nearby — dried grasses, fir cones, branches, birds’ nests, even bits of rag. She clearly made the most of anything that would burn.
She lowered the hatchet as she saw me arrive (I wondered if it was the same one that she used to chop ingredients) and stood up to greet me, pressing one hand into her crooked back as if to ease the ache. She looked at me with shrewd, glittering green-grey eyes. ‘If you are wanting pies at this hour, mister, then you’re unlucky, I’m afraid. There’s none of last night’s left. My good-for-nothing son has taken them to sell, and I shan’t be starting baking any more till he comes home with the supplies — and even then it will be hours before they’re cooked enough to eat.’ She gave me a brief, well-practised smile, showing a surprisingly handsome set of teeth — large but not discoloured and remarkably complete. ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll set one aside for you.’ She turned back to her work.
I shook my head. This was going to be even more difficult than I had supposed: she was so unsuspecting of what lay in store! I went up, removed the hatchet gently from her grasp and made to take her arm, ready to lead her in the direction of the hut. ‘I think that you should come and sit down in the house. What I have to tell you is distressing news. It concerns your son.’
She snatched her arm away and stood confronting me. ‘He hasn’t gone and got us into debt a second time? I suppose he’s been gambling on the chariot races again? Well, as I told the other man your masters sent around, Lucius cannot pay you with what he hasn’t got.’ She wiped a bedraggled sleeve across her face. ‘And it is no good coming here and threatening me for it. I haven’t got a quadrans, as you can clearly see. I didn’t know he’d got caught up again. I thought he’d given up betting after what you did to him. But my son is single-minded when he decides to be.’
Rather like his mother, I thought inwardly, but all I said was, ‘So he’d been in debt before?’ It was not at all what I had planned to say, but this was a very unexpected piece of news. I hadn’t envisaged Lucius as a chariot devotee.
There was no reason why he shouldn’t be — apart from poverty. There is no permanent chariot circus in the neighbourhood — the arena in the amphitheatre, where gladiatorial games take place and where criminals were sometimes thrown to the beasts, is too confined to stage a proper race — but there is a site where a temporary structure can be set up for the day, complete with turning posts, dolphin-shaped devices to indicate the laps, and viewing stands where all but the more exclusive seats are free. The lack of facilities ensures there are no full-time local teams, but there are chariot-racing festivals from time to time, sometimes with famous visiting drivers on display, funded by some local dignitary as a part of a campaign to win favour with the populace. All the same, poor working freemen like Lucius did not usually attend, still less did they ever bet money on a race. They simply did not have the time and cash to spare, and anyway, since they did not have the vote, the entertainment was not aimed at them. But Lucius, it seemed, had placed a bet or two — no doubt on borrowed money, as he had none of his own.
So I wondered if I’d stumbled on a motive for his death. The men who run the betting syndicates are famous (or infamous) for their ruthlessness. It would not have been the first time they’d made a cash advance on the promise of repayment if the team came home and then exacted a terrible revenge on someone who had failed to pay them what was owed.
In that case, the killer would be hard to catch, I thought. Victims are reluctant to identify the men behind these gambling rings. Assaults and murders are not reported to the authorities, partly because people fear reprisals if they do, and also because betting on the chariots is, itself, a technical offence. (There has been too much corruption and race-fixing in the past, my patron told me once, sometimes resulting in riots in the street.) Yet it remains absurdly easy to find someone who will take your stake — agents approach you as you wait outside — and even the law which forbids gambling booths at the course is, very often, effectively ignored.
So, ‘Lucius was gambling on the chariots?’ I said again.
She looked suspiciously at me. ‘You didn’t know that? So you didn’t come from them? And you don’t want a pie?’ Her voice was sharper now. ‘Then, what have you come for? You said it was bad news.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s Lucius.’
She made a tutting sound. ‘It almost always is. What is it this time? Accosting travellers to buy his pies and having them complain? If you are an aedile from the market police-’ She broke off and stared at me. ‘But, of course, you aren’t. You wouldn’t be wearing that tunic if you were. But this must be serious. I see you’ve brought his tray. Have they arrested him?’
I nodded and laid it carefully against the oven wall. ‘It’s serious, but not for the reasons that you think. And there’s no kind way to tell you. Lucius is dead. Got himself murdered somewhere in the street.’
‘Murdered?’ I had expected her to cry or shriek or groan, or give some other indication of her grief, but she said the word quite softly. ‘Well, that’s the end of that. Not much of a life he ever led, poor lad.’ Her face was calm but all the light had gone out of her eyes. ‘Did you see him dead? Do you think he suffered? Tell me it was quick!’
I found a way to answer that at least. ‘He was set on from behind. He could scarcely have realized what was happening.’ It was almost true. There was no point in telling her about the clawing hands and bulging eyes. But there was one thing I had to be quite certain of. ‘They’ve taken him for a pauper’s burial. He wasn’t a member of a funeral guild?’