‘The guard found him,’ I said. ‘He had been stabbed and robbed.’
‘A cut-throat, then? Poor Daedalus. I knew he was carrying money. Yes, I feared the worst. He was no coward. He would not have run away, and if Crassus had freed him as he promised, I would have heard. Daedalus promised to go to Lucius and beg him to buy us.’ He looked at me, as fully as his bonds would allow. ‘We had high hopes. Crassus would have promised his brother anything to keep him away from here — he didn’t want the world to know there was a Christian in the family. Daedalus was a friend. When I didn’t hear from him I knew that he was either imprisoned or dead.’
I looked at him, a small, pathetic, manacled scrap in the candlelight. His childlike faith in friendship was rather touching; an echo of the old Celtic ways. ‘Yes, he is dead,’ I said softly. ‘Now, are you going to tell me where you went during the procession, and whom you paid to have Crassus killed? You know Marcus could have you tortured?’
A little moan of terror escaped him, but he stiffened himself. ‘I cannot tell you, citizen. I cannot. Marcus will have to do his worst. I will be killed, I know that. But if I am certainly to die, I dare not also die cursed. I have sworn an oath of silence to the gods. And the gods repay. See how Crassus perished!’
I thought of all the legends of my people — the warrior hero with his lute refusing to stoop to cowardice. I wished that I could promise this brave, misguided youth that I could spare him additional lashes at least, but I knew that I could not. I had made my own compromises long ago. It was the price of survival. I said, ‘Then I must leave you. Faustina loves you. Do not despair.’
It was not much in the way of reassurance, but it was the best I could do. When I came out into the colonnade, the sunlight must have hurt my eyes. I found that they were smarting.
Chapter Eighteen
Marcus was waiting impatiently. He was not, in any case, in the sweetest of moods by this time. All efforts to find Paulus had failed, and he had been obliged to submit to the attentions of a less experienced slave. The experience had not improved his temper. Nor his beauty, I was bound to admit.
‘Very well, Libertus. Now that you have condescended to come, perhaps we can get back to Glevum.’
Under the circumstances it did not seem an auspicious moment to argue. I had only wanted to return to Glevum to search for Daedalus, but when Marcus motioned me into the gig with him I obeyed, even though it meant leaving Junio to follow us on foot, and prevented me from any closer examination of Daedalus’ body.
It had been stripped by now and was being thrown onto a cart for disposal in the communal grave on the hill. Since he was a dead slave, and not a runaway, he would be accorded a household funeral. There would, with luck, be a cursory prayer mumbled over him, a piece of coarse bread and a little water stuffed down the pipe which ‘fed’ the souls, and a solitary as coin in his mouth, as he was tumbled in on top of the other rotting bones exposed by the digging. The passing of an unregarded slave is different from his master’s.
The armour, however, was travelling with us in the gig. It rattled and lurched alarmingly at every bump but I was able to confirm two things I had suspected. First, there were several segments of the scale-armour missing. That solved the problem of the piece I had found in the roundhouse. Secondly, the pattern of the whole was, as near as I could recall it, exactly like that which Andretha had taken from the body before the funeral. I wished that I had taken the opportunity to examine Germanicus’ accoutrements again, but that was not possible now. Marcus, always a model of efficiency, had sent the whole uniform back to the armourer with the returning funeral contingent, on the grounds that all Germanicus’ effects were to be sold.
‘At least,’ I said to Marcus, as we settled into the gig and let the driver bounce us at an uncomfortable trot up the main lane to the Glevum road, ‘I now know what happened to Crassus’ old armour.’
He was unimpressed. ‘Hardly a major matter. It will not fetch a great deal. It has not been improved, either, by spending several days in the water.’ He glanced at it disdainfully. ‘Though why Daedalus was wearing it illegally I cannot see. I don’t suppose we shall ever know, now the slave is dead.’
‘I think,’ I hazarded, ‘that he was wearing it at his master’s command.’ I outlined my theory about the substitution at the festival.
Marcus was only vaguely listening. As far as he was concerned the murder was now solved and anything else was of academic interest. ‘A dangerous trick,’ he said, casually.
‘Daedalus was a skilled mimic. I believe he was gambling for his life — his freedom if he was successfully undetected.’
Marcus, to my surprise, threw back his head and laughed. ‘Dangerous, but typical of Crassus — he would bet on two slugs if he saw profit in it. No wonder that pouch was worth the stealing, Crassus would never accept a wager unless there was a good prize if he won. I suppose Daedalus was carrying his stake money in the pouch?’
I nodded. ‘That is my guess.’
I waited for Marcus to ask where a mere slave had obtained that kind of money, but he didn’t. Instead he began a lengthy complaint about the rigours of spending a night in the countryside, the current lack of hot water at the villa and the impossibility of obtaining a shave. ‘I had thought,’ he said, ‘of simplifying the procedure with Lucius by buying the villa myself. My apartments in Glevum are pleasant enough, but they are merely rented, and I have no country property at present. The farm seems profitable, I was talking to the bailiff this morning. But I am beginning to change my mind. The place is wretchedly remote and inconvenient. And there is no decent barber’s shop for miles.’
I had to smile. A good many ‘urban’ Romans wanted a country property; a sort of dream retreat where they could go at the end of a busy few days in the town to enjoy a sculptured prospect of trees and streams and forget about business and politics for a little. The practical aspects of such an arrangement — travel and damp and inconvenience — often did not occur to them; and they were in any case carefully shielded from the ruder realities such as the presence of mud and the smell of pigs. Marcus, it seemed, was no exception.
‘Part of it will come to you anyway, if Lucius declines to inherit.’ I tried to sound like a man of the world, but my words came out in little breathy bounces as the gig dashed along. We had reached the high road by now and were setting a handsome pace while I clung to the side for dear life. Marcus was used to this sort of headlong transport, I was not.
‘I think I will send to him tomorrow, anyway,’ Marcus said. ‘His seal is required, in any case, to show he accepts the inheritance. I think he will, since the money will fund a church. Perhaps I will offer for the villa, after all. He may be glad of a quick sale.’
Marcus would make a low offer, I suspected. One could not expect a hermit to be a man of business.
We were approaching the colonia by now, driving through the rows of monuments, graves and vaults which lined the road, some of them so large and imposing that the cemetery area looked almost like a town itself. Then we were among the straggling buildings of the outskirts, and finally under the wall itself.
‘Well,’ Marcus said, as we bowled through the gate, under the triumphal arch, and down the wide paved street towards the forum, ‘thank you for your help in this. I am sure that you would have preferred to solve the mystery unaided, but probably Rufus would not have confessed without your investigations. I am not displeased.’
He was looking delighted, in fact. Of course Rufus’ confession pleased him; not only did it ‘solve’ the murder where I had failed to do so, but it proved that the killing was a non-political matter. That was Marcus’ primary concern.
I got down from the gig at the statue of Jupiter, in the middle of the square. Marcus was going to his apartment, and then to the baths. ‘A massage and a proper shave,’ he said, with relish. ‘That is what I need, now this matter is dealt with. My thanks once more, Libertus. And I shall call on you again if I need your services, never fear.’