That was seriously bad news. Even I knew that sections of the army wanted to overthrow the emperor and instate the legionary legate, Priscus, in his stead, while other sections favoured the governor, Pertinax, for the imperial crown. The complication, from my point of view, was that these two treasonable alternatives were not politically equal. Marcus was the governor’s personal representative. He rose or fell with Pertinax. No wonder he was concerned about possible political conspiracy.
‘How do you know this?’ I asked, warily. If he was right I stood a good chance of ending up in the hypocaust myself.
‘Aulus had the presence of mind to keep watch, and saw them. One man came each time, and Germanicus went out and was whispering to each of them in the lane. But here is Aulus, he can tell you himself.’
Aulus was unwilling. He was a great, coarse, lumbering bear of a man with a leering manner, shifting eyes and a nervous tongue which licked out and moistened his lips as he spoke. Serving two masters is always a dangerous task, but he told his story at last, glancing occasionally around him in case Andretha was lurking in the shadows. In essence, though, it was precisely as Marcus had said. He could add nothing, although he hedged the story round with excuses: it had been too dark to see in detail, and he had been too far away to hear. At least two visits, though, he was certain of that. One three days before the procession, and one a week or two earlier. A centurion on both occasions. He was unable to say if it was the same man.
About the disappearance of Crassus, though, he was adamant. It was exactly as Andretha had reported, and he knew absolutely nothing more about it. By the time Marcus let him go, Aulus was sweating.
‘He’s hiding something,’ Marcus said. ‘But we’ll get the truth out of him. By flogging if necessary.’
I shook my head. ‘I doubt it, excellence. By all means interview the household, but I don’t believe flogging will help. No one saw this, except the murderer himself, and he won’t tell you. Perhaps we should be asking in the town? Looking for someone who saw Crassus after the procession?’
Marcus frowned. ‘Well, perhaps. But remember, I expect discretion.’
I sighed. The implications of that did not escape me. Marcus had no intention of demeaning himself by interrogating the townspeople at random. He expected me to do that, when I had finished here. In the meantime precious time would be passing.
‘There may be someone who saw Daedalus, too. He is a missing slave, after all.’
That roused him. A runaway slave is a serious matter. ‘You think he did it? You know the man, you were in this household for weeks.’
I laughed, shortly. ‘I hardly knew him. I was in the librarium. A man who works for Crassus has little time for gossiping.’
‘But you knew his reputation?’
I did. Crassus’ favourite slave; clever, shrewd, talented — he had a gift for mimicry which made him a favourite for ‘fashionable’ entertainments — but ambitious too. ‘He could have done it. He is calculating enough. But he had been promised his freedom. He may even have received it — it is not unknown for men to free their slaves at the festival, as a sort of sacrifice.’
‘And then he turned on his ex-master? It is hard to see why, although Andretha might hope so. If Crassus was killed by a free man, it changes everything.’
‘Why else would he disappear?’
Marcus raised his eyebrows, and voiced what both of us had been thinking. ‘Suppose Germanicus threatened to refuse him, after all? Changed his mind about manumission?’
‘And Daedalus killed him in a fury? Murder in the heat of the moment, that I can understand. But why bring the body back? And how? Dragging a corpse for miles is to invite discovery, and anyway they could not have returned here before the others. Crassus was in the procession. He would have had to wait till the end of the sacrifices, and they had no transport. The servants had the farm cart, and you heard Andretha — Crassus intended to hire horses when he had finished feasting.’
‘He didn’t do that,’ Marcus put in. ‘The aediles have already made enquiries. No one hired a horse, or a carriage. There were none free to hire immediately after the procession. He and Daedalus would have been on foot — unless they stole a nag. Or borrowed one. There was some itinerant pilgrim who passed this way on a mule, but they didn’t hire that either, he was seen trotting back with it long before the festival was over. No thefts have been reported.’
‘In any case,’ I said, ‘a man who wanted to hide a corpse could hardly have risked stealing a horse as well. He’d have had half the countryside after him. No, I fear you are right. We must try to trace those armed soldiers. But — let us listen to the household first. There may be something we can glean from them.’
But no one — not the lute player, not the cooks, not the house-slaves or the dancing girls — had anything to add to the story we had heard already. Crassus set out early for the procession with Daedalus and had insisted on walking the three or four miles to Glevum because the day was fine and he intended feasting afterwards. It sounded daunting to me, walking miles in full armour and then taking part in a procession, but presumably it was nothing to an old soldier trained to march all day carrying his entire kit.
The servants had all travelled to Glevum together on the farm cart, watched the procession, and come home the same way, and no one had seen or heard anything of Crassus until the two men who stoked the hypocaust went down at midday to relight the furnace.
Marcus questioned them harshly, but they were unshakable. They had gone to the feast with the others and, having been granted a holiday from stoking, had spent the afternoon chopping logs for the extra woodpile in full view of the slaves carrying water and tending the inner gardens. The stoke-hole was round at the side of the villa and, with the furnaces out, no one had been near it. Equally, no one could have got to it from outside without being seen.
‘So, we are back to politics,’ Marcus said, over the bowl of stew and fish sauce which the kitchen had finally produced. ‘It seems nobody in the household did it. Or all of them did.’ He looked at me enquiringly.
I said nothing. I was trying to spoon up my stew without actually swallowing any of the fish sauce — that horrible fermented stuff with anchovies in it that the Romans seem to put on everything. Furthermore, I was trying to do so without Marcus noticing. I gave him a wan smile.
Marcus said languidly, ‘Or perhaps Crassus’ death is just some punishment by the gods. It was the feast of Mars after all.’ He finished his own stew and pushed the plate away. ‘Well, I’ll leave it to you, Libertus. I’ve done all I can here. Send to me, if you discover anything. I suppose we must allow Andretha to make arrangements for the funeral procession, so we will meet in three days, at least. In the meantime, I’ll ask at the guardroom, and see if there is any information about those two soldiers. They must have been missed, they were out well after curfew. And now, I must get back to Glevum. My carriage driver will be anxious for his supper.’
Chapter Three
I lay awake for a long time, thinking. Andretha had shown me to a guest bedroom — a proper Roman bed with a stuffed mattress supported on a webbed wood frame — but for all the fine woollen blankets I slept less soundly than I might have done on my own humble pile of reeds and rags. This murder worried me. Not that I mourned Crassus particularly, but I dislike unsolved puzzles. Why bring the body back where it was certain to be found? And how? It seemed an impossible feat. And so deliberate, as though it meant something. Assuming, I thought drowsily, that Crassus hadn’t crept home unnoticed and committed suicide by stuffing his own head into the furnace. Or drunk himself stupid, stumbled into the stoke room and died of inhaling smoke.
And then tucked himself tidily into the furnace, perhaps? Besides, how would he have got past the villa gates? A stocky man in full military uniform, complete with shield, spear, helmet and mask, is not easy to miss, especially when the whole household is on the lookout for him. And ten times more so if he is drunk. No, however he had died, someone else had put him in the furnace.