Roman blood

'A spray of flowers,' Carus said, staring bleakly at the copy with its vapid expression and wild tendrils of hair, almost more a Medusa than an Alexander. 'In the days before the change, my mistress kept a silver vase in that niche, with fresh flowers from the garden. Or sometimes in spring the girls would bring wildflowers down from the hillsides….'

'Is the steward drunk yet?'

He looked at me suspiciously. 'Analaeus is hardly ever sober.'

'Then perhaps I should ask: is he indisposed?'

'If you mean unconscious, probably so. There's a little house at the far corner of the estate where he likes to slip away when he's able.'

"The house where Sextus and the family stayed after Capito evicted him?'

Carus looked at me darkly. 'Exactly. I saw Analaeus headed that way this morning after the master left, taking the new slave girl from the kitchens with him. That and a bottle of wine should keep him busy all day.'

'Good, then we won't be disturbed.' I strolled into the next room. This was where they did their living. The place was scattered with the debris of a party from the night before, the kind of party three rough-natured men might hold in the absence of their wives. A timid young slave girl was busy trying to straighten the mess, moving from disaster to disaster with a look of total helplessness on her face. She wouldn't meet my eyes. Carus clapped his hands at her and shooed her from the room.

Mounted prominently on one wall was a large family portrait done in encaustic on wood. I recognized Capito from my glimpse of him the day before: a white-haired, waspish-looking man. His wife was a stern matron with a large nose. They were flanked by various grown children and their spouses. The entire family seemed to be glaring at the artist as if already suspicious of being overcharged.

'How I detest them,' Carus whispered. I looked at him in surprise. He kept his eyes fixed on the painting. 'The whole lot of them, rotten to the core. Look at them all, so smug and self-satisfied. This portrait was the first thing they did after they moved into the house, brought an artist all the way from Rome to do it. So eager to capture for all posterity that gloating look of triumph on their faces.' He seemed unable to go on speaking; his hps trembled as if he were nauseated with loathing. 'How can I tell you what I've seen in this house since they came? The meanness, the vulgarity, the deliberate cruelty? Sextus Roscius may not have been the best of masters, and the mistress may have had her moments of anger, but they never spat in my face. And if Sextus Roscius was a terrible father to his daughters, what business was that of mine? Ah, the girls were always so sweet. How I pitied them.'

'A terrible father?' I said. 'What do you mean?'

Carus ignored me. He closed his eyes and turned away from the portrait. 'What is it you want? Who sent you to Ameria? Sextus Roscius? Or that rich woman he spoke of in Rome? What have you come for, to kill them in their sleep?'

'I'm not a killer,' I told him.

'Then why are you here?' Suddenly he was fearful again. 'I came because there was a question I forgot to ask you yesterday.' 'Yes?'

'Sextus Roscius — pater, not filius — saw a prostitute in Rome. I mean to say there were many prostitutes, but this one was special to him. A young girl with honeyed hair, very sweet. Her name—'

'Elena,' he said.

'Yes.'

'They brought her here not very long after the old man was murdered.'

'Who brought her?'

'It's hard to remember exactly who or when. Everything was confusion, all this nonsense about lists and the law. I suppose it was Magnus and Mallius Glaucia who brought her here.'

'And what did they do with her?'

He snorted. 'What didn't they do?'

'You mean they raped her?'

'While Capito watched. And laughed. He made the kitchen girls bring him food and wine while it was going on, scaring them out of their wits. I told them to stay in the kitchen, that I'd do the serving and Capito struck me with a whip and swore he'd have my balls chopped off Sextus Roscius was furious when I told him. This was when he was still allowed in the house, even though the soldiers had thrown him out. He argued with Capito constantly, and when he wasn't arguing he sulked, stuck in the little house across the way. I know they argued a lot about Elena.'

'And when they brought her here, was she already showing her pregnancy?'

He gave me an angry, frightened look, and I could see that he was wondering how I could know so much and not be one of them. 'Of course,' he snapped, 'at least when she was naked. Don't you understand, that was the point. Magnus and Glaucia claimed they could make her abort the child, especially if they both took her at once.'

'And did they?'

'No. After that they left her alone. Perhaps Sextus managed to soften Capito, I don't know. Her belly grew larger and larger. She was put with the kitchen slaves and did her share of work. But right after she had the baby she disappeared.'

'When was this?'

'Three months ago? I can't remember exactly.' 'So they took her back to Rome?'

'Maybe. Or maybe they killed her. It was either her they killed, or the baby, or both of them.' 'What do you mean?' 'Here, I'll show you.'

Without a word he led me out ofthe house and into the fields behind. He threaded a path through the grape arbours, wending past slaves who skulked and slept in the leafy shade. A winding pathway led up a hillside to the family gravesite whose stelae I had glimpsed the day before.

'Here,' he said. 'You can tell from the earth which are the newer ones. The old man was buried here, beside Gaius.' He pointed to two gravesites. The older one was decorated with a finely carved stele picturing a handsome young Roman in the guise of a shepherd surrounded by satyrs and nymphs; there was a great deal of engraving below, in which I glimpsed the words GAIUS, BELOVED SON, GIFT FROM THE GODS. The newer mound was marked only with a simple uninscribed slab that had the look of being merely temporary.

'You can tell how much his father doted on Gaius,' said Carus. 'A beautiful piece of work, isn't it? Done specially by an artisan in the city who knew the boy; it looks just like him. He was very handsome, as you can see; the stone even captures that look in his eyes. Of course the old man so far has nothing better than a beggar's stele, not even marked with his name. Sextus intended to have it there only until he could commission a special one done up from portraits of his father. You can wager Capito won't be wasting any of his new fortune on a stone.'

He touched his fingers to his lips and then to the top of each slab, in the old Etruscan manner of showing respect for the dead, then led me to a weedy patch nearby. 'And this was the grave that appeared after Elena vanished.'

There was nothing but a small mound of earth and a broken stone at the head to mark the spot.

'We heard her giving birth the night before. Screaming loud enough to wake the whole house. Maybe Magnus and Glaucia had done something terrible to her insides, after all. The next day Sextus showed up at the house, though Capito had long since stopped allowing him inside. But Sextus forced his way in and cornered Capito in his study. They slammed the door, and I heard them arguing for a long time, first yelling and then very quiet. Later Elena was gone, but I didn't know where. And then some of the other slaves told me about the new gravesite. It's a small grave, isn't it? But rather large for just a baby. Elena was small herself hardly more than a girl. What do you think, could it hold both a girl and her baby?' 'I don't know,' I said.

'Neither do I. And no one ever told me. But this is what I think: the baby was born dead, or else they killed it.' 'And Elena?'