I pondered this theory. 'Do you think that after Zosime left, this crazy knife-man persuaded Veleda to have the trepanation after all, that he drilled out a circle of her skull and managed to kill her with the procedure – so somebody has hidden her body to avoid political embarrassment?' 'Zosime did not suggest it.' 'If she stopped visiting the house, she wouldn't know. She may never have dealt with the kind of devious people we meet.' I was now thinking back to my interviews that morning with Quadrumatus Labeo and his wife, trying to decide whether they could have been hiding such a cover-up. 'Was Mastarna one of the doctors you met today?' Helena asked. 'No, I just saw the senator's dream therapist – Pylaemenes, a crackpot Chaldean – then I had a surly encounter with Cleander, who came to tickle up the wife with his cold Greek fingers.' 'You're being lewd, Marcus.' 'Who, me? Cleander once taught Greek theory to Zosime, but that doesn't make him enlightened; he's an arrogant swine who looks down on mere mortals. Presumably he's in medicine for the money, not from charitable feelings. I can't imagine he was connected to the Temple of Жsculapius for long. Now what else did the witchy freedwoman say – dark, forbidding Phryne – the senator has a tame Egyptian, who I suppose feeds him ground crocodile bones, and yes: then there's Mastarna – Mastarna, she told me, used to look after the dead man. So Gratianus Scaeva was in the hands of the keen surgeon Zosime quarrelled with.'
Helena slowly munched a slightly stale bread roll. I said she liked a challenge. I had seen her test her teeth on hard crusts before, in the same way that my mother always made out it was her maternal lot to endure leftovers and inedible scraps. 'So,' Helena asked me eventually, when her jaw tired of this punishment, 'what is the significance of Scaeva's doctor in this household of hypochondriacs?'
'The answer will probably depend,' I said, 'on whatever link we find between Veleda and Scaeva. Who really killed him: whether it was, or was not, Veleda. And why? Was there any connection between the death of Scaeva and the timing of Veleda's escape – other than her taking advantage of panic and commotion in the house?'
'His head was cut off,' Helena commented, in surprise. 'Are you suggesting that somebody other than Veleda carried out that particularly Celtic act?'
'Could be. I never saw the body; of course it's cremated. I'd like to ask Mastarna if he carried out a professional examination when his patient's corpse was found. There could have been other wounds, wounds that were inflicted first. Who would bother to check? There's a man with his head cut off, so you assume that is the cause of death… But I shall keep an open mind. He could have died some other way, then Veleda's presence in the house gave someone the idea to blame his death on her.'
'Somebody with a very cool nerve!' Helena commented. 'Even if Scaeva was already dead, I imagine it takes courage to decapitate a corpse. '
'You're right. The tribes do it in the heat of battle, and they do it to their enemies which must be an encouragement… Maybe, when I find an opportunity,' I said, 'I should find out what enemies Gratianus Scaeva had.' Helena pulled a face. 'He was a young man. Was he the type to have enemies?'
I laughed bitterly. 'Well born, well off, well thought of… I was told he was a perfect character – so trust me, fruit; he's bound to have been a right bastard!'
XIII
Next day began with a visit to my father at the Saepta Julia. My runner, Gaius, had failed to report back, but I found him with Pa at the family antiques warehouse. Gaius had completely forgotten about my questions, and was absorbed in negotiations to sell Pa various statuettes he had stolen from temples when I took him on our tour of Greece. Pa was in his usual battered old folding campaign chair; Gaius was lounging like a prince in a stationary litter that had a five-foot-high gilded armchair. Most of the carrying poles looked sound, but the chair was very worn. 'He's got a good eye,' beamed my father approvingly. 'Oh he knows when to commit sacrilege. Gaius is a little tyke; he could have got us all arrested if anyone had noticed him looting ritual offerings.' Luckily, in the family tradition, Gaius could bluff his way out of trouble. He was around sixteen, with a curly rug of black hair just like my father's (and mine), and currently had the air of one born to sprawl under a regal canopy as if being carried to his banker's by a team of eight Mauretanian bearers. 'Now look here, Father, I sent this chancer to you with some important questions -'
'No, just look at this -' Pa held up a tiny model of a womb. Some patient cured of a tumour or infertility had donated it gratefully to the gods at Olympia, Corinth or Athens, only to have Gaius swan along and swipe it. 'This is quite a rarity.' Pa noticed Gaius taking too much interest, so dropped the praise before my nephew tried to negotiate an improved purchase price. 'Difficult to sell because of the religious connection…' Gaius raised his eyes to the ceiling; he recognised devious backtracking. 'Uncle Marcus will vouch for the provenance.' 'No, I'll vouch for you being a bad boy who has no respect for ancient sites, Gaius!'
'Don't be so stiff-necked,' ordered Pa. 'Give the lad a bit of encouragement. He's shaping up really nicely; I need Gaius, since you refuse to take an interest in the family business.' Groaning, I managed to extract from my father a description of the silver ear-rings Justinus had bought to mollify Claudia. I told Pa to look out for Justinus, the ear-rings, or a lost-looking woman of German extraction whose name I was not allowed to mention. 'Oh you mean Veleda? Everyone is talking about her being free,' said Pa.
'Is there a finder's fee?' Gaius demanded, voicing what my father would have put to me had he got in first. Instead, Pa, ever the hypocrite, pretended to tut at the greed of modem youth. 'The reward is a clear conscience.' 'Not enough!' snorted Pa, and Gaius nodded. 'Doing your duty to preserve the Empire -' 'Bugger that for a game of soldiers,' sneered Gaius. This time Pa did the seconding. Not long afterwards I was in the Emporium, trying to track down German traders. The Emporium was the long stone building on the banks of the Tiber, which ran from near my present house southwards along the shipping lane, almost to the city boundary. There were unloaded all the best commodities, brought in from worldwide sources, to be sold in Rome. It was a wondrous hubbub of sights, sounds and smells, where tight knots of dealers and double-dealers fixed the rates and the outlets for artwork and marble, precious woods and metals, spices, gemstones, wines, oils, dyes, ivory, fish products, leather, wools and silks. You could buy a barrel of fresh British oysters in saline for your dinner party, peacock fans to decorate the dining room while you ate them, a handsome slave to serve the meal, and a sarcophagus to hold your corpse after you discovered the oysters had not survived the journey safely. The item prices were tempting – until you added in the dealers' premiums, luxury tax and the costs of transport to your house. This was if you managed to get in and out of the building without having your purse stolen.
My father, in whom snobbery flared high, had declared there would be no importers bringing local wares from either Roman or Free Germany, though I would find plenty of exporters sending fine Roman products to deprived provincials. He was only slightly wrong. Following his directions, I did track down a few sad purveyors of Rhenish hides, woollen coats, and even decorated terracotta bowls, but most of the negotiators who were here from the north were sending luxuries back home. Where they were selling, their dinnerware was good (Helena and I already owned a similar set from Gaul), but as they were passing off the stuff as coming from the well-known factory sites at Arretium, the prices here were Italian and there was no cost benefit.