The entire crowd fell silent as military horns wailed a fanfare. An execution party came marching out, sixteen men under their decurion, divided into squads of four. Each squad guarded a prisoner, a beam across his shoulder, being dragged out to be crucified at the Palace of Bones. Once these had passed, Claudia and Murranus joined the rest of the crowds as they surged through the gateway on to the thoroughfare, which immediately radiated out into narrow runnels, alleyways and side streets.
Claudia heaved a sigh of relief, as she always did whenever she returned to this quarter. It might be stinking, noisy and colourful, but this was her home, a safe place where she could recognise people and knew who they really were, a bustling rabbit warren of narrow lanes cluttered with open-air stalls. The traders set up their makeshift shops in the crumbling loggia and peristyles or at the mouths of alleyways, selling everything from pots to cakes. On the walls around them garishly daubed notices proclaimed the price of certain goods and where these could be bought, as well as the names of candidates for the next election to some municipal office. Claudia and Murranus were well known here and were greeted with good-natured teasing and salutations.
Torquatus the Tonsor, a seller-of-potions-cum-barber-cum-leech, had, as usual, procured the best position under a giant gnarled sycamore tree in the square near the She Asses tavern. Torquatus spent his days shaving people, cutting their hair, listening avidly to their medical ailments and, as he put it, offering his 'best advice', which, he solemnly assured his customers, came from leading imperial physicians. He greeted Claudia and asked if she'd seen the 'Great Miracle' at the She Asses tavern? Claudia stared back in puzzlement. But even before she and Murranus reached the small square fronting the inn, she sensed something was wrong.
The She Asses was one of the most comfortable taverns in the Suburra. It boasted a restaurant, eating hall, small chambers upstairs and a very well-endowed kitchen, as well as Polybius' 'crowning glory', a graceful, spacious garden to the rear. The tavern occupied most of the ground floor and first storey of an insula or apartment block situated between the Flavian Gate and the crumbling Temple of the Crown of Venus. The windows were covered with stiffened papyrus and wooden shutters. It had two main doors, an outer one and, just behind that, a folding door. Above the entrance was a lovely statue of Minerva holding her pet owl. On either side of the doorway, fixed in niches, stood a grinning Hermes or Mercury, whilst the door-knocker was shaped like a huge phallus. The male clientele regarded this as a token of good luck in matters venereal and always asked their girlfriends to stroke it. Petronius the Pimp had boasted how the obscene object was modelled on his own penis, to which Poppaoe had retorted that she personally knew the carver was a very short-sighted man! A large placard to the right of the door advertised the dish of the day, usually sausages and mushrooms grilled in garlic. Little wonder Uncle Polybius was growing increasingly concerned that his menu was beginning to bore his customers! Next to the placard hung another notice listing the prices of drinks and warning wandering warlocks, wizards and pimps to take their business elsewhere, unless they had the 'special permission of the proprietor'.
On this particular afternoon the crowds had gathered and Claudia and Murranus had to climb through one of the tavern's windows, opened specially for them by the barrel-chested, pot-bellied Oceanus. He dragged them through into the long eating hall, also packed to overflowing, and led them around the counter into the kitchen. Claudia immediately conceded that something must be seriously wrong: there were no smells, no odours of piquant sauces, no crackling charcoal in the hearth; the pots remained unwashed whilst the two ovens beside the hearth were stone-cold. She turned on Oceanus.
'What is it?'
The bald-headed ex-gladiator was so agitated he didn't know whether to finger, as he always did when highly nervous, the brass ring in his good ear, or the dried ear hanging on a cord round his neck. In his last great fight this had been bitten off. Oceanus had eventually won the battle and had the severed ear dried and pickled to wear as a trophy.
'Oceanus!' Claudia stood on a stool and seized the man's fat face between her hands. 'Oceanus, tell me the truth or I'll bite your nose!'
'It's a miracle.' Oceanus' eyes widened. 'A Great Miracle. Claudia, you know the cellars beneath the tavern?'
Claudia nodded. The underground rooms and caverns of the insula were also the properly of Polybius and he'd always wanted them developed.
'Well,' Oceanus continued, 'what was found has been put down there.'
'What has?'
'What was discovered in the garden this morning.'
'Oceanus!' Claudia gripped the former gladiator's face, pulled it close and winked quickly at the puzzled Murranus.
'Early this morning,' Oceanus gabbled, 'Venutus the Vinedresser arrived to dig a small oil press in the garden. Well, he didn't listen properly! He and his workmen dug deep but they'd chosen the wrong place and they discovered her-'
'Oceanus, it's time for nose-biting!'
'A corpse,' Oceanus whispered, eyes drifting to the kitchen door, which he now wished he hadn't closed. 'A what?'
'A young woman's corpse, wrapped in linen and placed in a long casket. She had the coins of the Emperor Diocletian on her eyes. You know him?'
'I know who he was.'
'She was a Christian martyr,' Oceanus gabbled. 'There were bruises on her neck and along her shoulders, religious symbols around the coffin.'
Claudia got down from the stool and stared in disbelief through the open window above the hearth. It overlooked the garden, its lawn, fountain, orchard, trees and small vineyard. Caligula the tavern cat was basking on one of the benches, being fanned by Sorry, the kitchen boy.
'I really must remember his name,' Claudia murmured.
'Sorry?' Murranus asked.
'Exactly!' Claudia grinned, pointing at the boy. 'That's all he says, hence his name. Oceanus, are you sure? The corpse was that of a young woman?'
'Come and see.' Oceanus took them out of the kitchen and over to a stone building where the insula's hypocaust had once been housed. Oceanus nodded to Mercury the Messenger, the tavern gossip, who was standing on guard outside; he bowed, eyes bright with excitement, lips moving soundlessly as he rehearsed the news he'd later spread through the entire quarter. This self-proclaimed herald opened the door and ushered them into the mildewed darkness now lit by fluttering torches. The place was full of people peering over each other's heads at the open door and stone steps leading down to the cellars. Claudia recognised the usual rogues: Simon the Stoic, Petronius the Pimp, Januaria the tavern wench and others of their coven. These tried to gossip with them but Murranus and Oceanus pushed their way through.
Claudia gingerly followed the two men down the cellar steps. The brickwork either side was a rough red covered with cobwebs; the torches fixed into rusting sockets and niches spluttered noisily, their resin smoke mixing with the dry mustiness of the cellars. The steps led to a row of square chambers opening on to each other. In the second stood Polybius, Poppaoe, Venutus the fat-faced vinedresser, and Polybius' friends and neighbours, Apuleius the Apothecary and his wife Callista. Both husband and wife were small, grey-haired and anxious-eyed. Claudia had often met and chatted to them, and liked them both. They originally came from the south, and had the dark, leathery look of peasants who'd worked for long hours under a broiling sun. They had moved into the quarter a few years ago, and since then Apuleius had earned a well-deserved reputation for being most skilled in the knowledge of herbs and medicine.