My own mouth felt dry and sour. The same old dreary depression at life being wasted for some barely credible motive and probably by some lowlife who just thought he could get away with it… The same anger and indignation… Then the same questions to ask: Who saw him last? How did he spend his last evening? Who were his associates?
When had I said that? Over Leonidas.
I played it as carefully as possible. "Poor fellow. Do you know who first discovered him?"
One of the gladiators was still speechless. The other forced himself to croak, "His minders this morning." The man had no neck, with a broad, ruddy, wide-chinned face that in other situations would have been naturally cheerful. He looked overweight, his chest in a fold and his arms chubbier than was ideal. I put him down as a retired survivor, running to seed.
"What's happened to the minders?"
"The boss took them away somewhere."
"Saturninus himself extracted them?"
"Yes."
Well that had a neat symmetry. First Calliopus had lost his lion and tried to disguise the circumstances. Now Saturninus had lost his best fighter and it looked as if a cover-up had been applied swiftly here too.
"Was he angry that they let someone get to Rumex?" The two new guards exchanged a glance and I had a feeling the old minders had been given a heavy thrashing. It would serve a double purpose: punishment-and making sure they kept their mouths shut.
"I heard about it in the Forum," Anacrites murmured, staring at the corpse. He managed to sound like anyone stunned by shocking news. A good spy, lacking character himself, he could blend into the background like fine mist blurring the contours of a Celtic glen. "Everyone was talking about it, though nobody understood what had happened. All sorts of stories were starting to circulate-if anyone asks us, what is supposed to be put out?"
"Died in his sleep," said the first guard. I smiled wryly. Typical of Saturninus. Effectively true-yet it gave away nothing.
"You must have been friends with Rumex. Who do you think did it?" I asked. With a creak of leather, the guard shrugged his big shoulders helplessly. "Do we know if he had visitors last night?"
"Rumex was always having visitors. Nobody kept count."
"Women, presumably. Don't his minders know who was here?"
The two gladiators exchanged mirthless laughs. I could not tell whether they were commenting on the number of female admirers their dead friend entertained in his room, the uselessness of the clique of slaves surrounding him, or some much more mysterious point. It was clear they did not intend to enlighten me.
"Didn't Saturninus try to find out if any women called on Rumex last night?"
Again that sense of hidden mirth. "The boss knows better than to ask about Rumex and his women," I was told in an oblique tone.
Anacrites pulled a fresh cover from one of the overflowing chests and spread it over the corpse with a show of respect. Just before he covered the face, he asked, "Was this a new chain?"
"Never seen it before."
Anacrites asked why the body was still lying here, and we heard that the undertaker was expected later that night. There certainly would be a more than decent funeral, paid for by the gladiators' own burial club, to which Rumex had in his lifetime contributed generously. Nobody knew why Saturninus had locked up the body instead of simply sending for the funeral arrangers earlier.
I wondered whether he had more urgent business than attending to the formalities. I asked where he was. Gone home, very upset, apparently. At least that gave us a breathing space.
"Tell me," I mused, "what do you know about the other night? When Rumex had to kill that lion?" Snatched glances passed between his two friends. "It can't matter anymore," I said.
"The boss won't like us talking."
"I won't tell him."
"He has a way of finding out."
"All right; I won't push you. But whatever occurred, it seems to have done for Rumex!"
At that they looked anxiously towards the door. Anacrites smoothly closed it.
In a low, rapid voice the first gladiator said, "It was that magistrate. He kept nagging the boss to do him a show at his house. Saturninus offered to take our leopardess, but he was set on a lion."
"Saturninus doesn't own one?" prompted Anacrites.
"His were all used and killed in the last Games; he's waiting for new stock. He tried to get one a few months ago, but Calliopus sneaked off to Puteoli and pipped him."
"Draco?" I asked.
"Right."
"I've seen Draco. He's a handsome beast with great spirit-and I know other people who would have liked to be the purchaser." Thalia had told me she fancied him for her troupe. "So Saturninus lost out, but he bribed a keeper at Calliopus' menagerie to let him borrow Draco for a night? Do you know about that?"
"Our folks went there and thought they'd picked him up all right. Afterwards we reckoned it was the wrong lion, of course. But they only saw one; the other must have been hidden away."
"What was Saturninus planning to do with him?"
"A show with the lion tethered in a harness. No real blood; only noise and drama. Not as frightening as it would look. Our keepers would control the lion, while Rumex dressed up in his gear and pretended to fight him. Just a display so the magistrate could get his girlfriend all hotted up."
"The totsy? Scilla, isn't it? She's juicy stuff? A lively girl?"
"She's a tough one," our informant agreed. His companion laughed lewdly.
"I follow-so what went wrong that night at Urtica's house? Did they hold the display as planned?"
"Never got started. Our keepers opened up the cage and were meaning to get the harness round the lion-"
"Sounds a tricky maneuver."
"They do it all the time. They use a piece of meat as bait."
"Sooner them than me. What if the lion or leopard decides today's choice from the cats' caupona will be human arm?"
"We end up with a one-handed keeper," grinned the second man, the one who hardly spoke. The cultured, sensitive one.
"Nice! And was Rumex used to fighting animals? He wasn't a bestiarius, surely? I thought he normally played a Samnite and was conventionally paired?"
"Right. He didn't want the job, and that's a fact. The boss leaned on him."
"How?"
"Who knows?" Once again, a shifty look passed between the two gladiators. They knew how. The old phrase "nothing to do with us, legate" went unsaid, but its implied customary addition "we could tell you things, all right!" hung in the air. They shared an unspoken pact that they would not tell me. I would put the whole conversation at risk by pushing it.
"We'll have to ask your boss then," Anacrites said. They deliberately made no comment, as if daring us.
"Let's go back to the ex-praetor's house," I suggested. "The lion's cage was opened up, and then what?"
"The keepers wanted to prepare everything quietly but the damned magistrate came on the scene, wetting himself with excitement. He grabbed one of those straw dummies they use to excite the beasts. He started to wave it about. The lion roared and crashed out past the keepers. It was terrible. He leapt straight at Urtica."
Anacrites gulped. "Dear gods. Was he hurt?"
The two men said nothing. He must have been. I could find out. That afternoon when I had tried to see him at his Pincian mansion, perhaps Pomponius Urtica had been groaning indoors, recovering from a mauling. At least I knew now what had befallen the torn straw man I had discovered in the workshops at the Calliopus barracks.
"It must have been an awful scene," Anacrites joined in again.
"Urtica was down, his girlfriend was screaming, none of our team could handle it."
"Rumex just grabbed a spear and did his best?"
His two friends were silent. Their attitudes seemed different. One had said his piece while the other listened with a slightly sardonic expression. It could be that the second man disapproved of him telling me the tale. Or it could be something else. He might just possibly disagree with the story as it had just been told.