Last Rites (Marcus Corvinus Book 6) Read online

  Well, it couldn’t be helped, and I could always call in at the guildhouse later for a list of names. Although it was unlikely that one of the musicians was involved. ‘You think I could talk to the maid now?’ I asked Galba. ‘Uh … Niobe, wasn’t it? And to your head female slave.’

  ‘Certainly. Certainly.’ The consul was frowning: I had the impression that he thought all this rigmarole was a waste of time and the sooner we all stopped cluttering up his living-room and went home the better. Maybe he was right. ‘I told them to wait in the kitchen. You, there.’ He beckoned over one of the slaves standing against the wall. ‘Fetch Niobe and Pythia.’

  ‘No, that’s okay.’ I didn’t fancy conducting an interrogation with a fair slice of Rome’s beautiful and good breathing down my neck. Besides, I’d bet the girls would be more talkative on home ground. ‘I’ll go to them.’

  Galba just looked at me, then turned away with a sniff. Par for the course. I wondered if the bastard even knew where his own kitchen was.

  They were sitting together side by side at the kitchen table, although I got the impression that there hadn’t been much talking going on. When I came in they jumped to their feet like someone had yanked on a string. Home ground or not, they looked nervous as hell; understandable, because like I say under the strict letter of the law with a suspicious death in the house all the slaves could be killed out of hand just on the off-chance they might’ve been in on it. It was obvious which was which: Pythia was a grey-haired old biddy seriously handicapped in the teeth department, while Niobe was a dark-haired, dark-skinned little stunner the same age as the dead girl.

  There was a stool in the corner by the sink. I pulled it over and perched on it while they watched me like rabbits watching a snake.

  ‘Hey, that’s all right,’ I said quietly. ‘Sit down. No one’s going to bite you.’

  They looked at each other. Pythia sat but the girl didn’t.

  ‘You’re Niobe?’ I said to her. She nodded. Her eyes were big and scared. ‘I was told you found the body.’

  Another nod. Moisture gathered under her right eye and crept down her cheek, but her expression didn’t change.

  ‘You care to tell me about it? From the beginning?’ The girl swallowed, tried to speak and swallowed again. I waited patiently. ‘Take you time. There’s no hurry.’

  ‘We’d finished eating. After the rite.’ Her voice was low and husky, and the accent was good for a slave’s. Of course: she’d been brought up outside the slave quarters, as one of the family. ‘The mistress had been sitting on her own in the corner and I’d been serving her. She got up. I was going to follow, but she said not to bother, she was only going to the toilet, she wouldn’t be long. I waited fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, and she didn’t come back.’

  ‘So you went to see if there was anything wrong.’

  She nodded. ‘She wasn’t in the latrine. I thought maybe she’d taken ill and gone to lie down somewhere, so I went looking for her. The door to one of the spare bedrooms was open and I saw … I …’ She stopped.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said gently. ‘Take your time.’

  ‘She was lying on the floor with a knife in her throat. There was … there was blood … all over …’ The tears were running freely now, but she paid them no attention. Another gulp. ‘I’m sorry, sir. That’s all I can tell you. Except that I fetched the Lady Junia Torquata right away.’

  ‘Was it your mistress’s knife?’ I kept my voice neutral.

  She brought the back of her hand across her eyes, wiping away the moisture; a single, sharp gesture as if she were ashamed of it. ‘No, sir. At least, I hadn’t seen it before. Any knife, I mean, not just that one. What would the mistress want with a knife?’

  ‘But she could’ve had it without your knowing?’

  The girl was quiet for a long time. Then she said, in a voice like a ghost’s, ‘Yes. Yes, she could.’

  Just that. ‘Okay.’ I shifted on the stool. ‘You sure you don’t want to sit down?’ She shook her head. ‘The Lady Torquata said your mistress seemed worried, that she had something on her mind. You know anything about that?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘She didn’t talk to you about it? Give any sort of hint?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The lips were tight and her eyes never moved from mine. She was lying, sure she was; however, short of turning her over to the torturers I wasn’t going to get much further, and I didn’t want to do that. I sighed. ‘Was your mistress pregnant?’

  ‘No, sir!’ Her chin went up, and I thought for a moment she was going to hit me. ‘The Lady Cornelia was a Vestal!’

  ‘But you’ve just told me she didn’t confide in you. It’s possible.’

  ‘It is not possible! The Lady Cornelia would’ve –’ She stopped, then went on carefully. ‘My mistress would have died first. If that’s what they’re saying out there then –’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I held up my hand. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?’

  Was that hesitation? I wasn’t sure. In any case, she shook her head.

  ‘No, sir. Nothing.’

  ‘The lady was wearing a ring. A man’s ring, on a cord round her neck. You know where she got it?’

  The lips tightened again. If looks could have killed I’d’ve been a grease spot. ‘No, sir.’

  Well, that was that. She knew, I’d’ve bet a year’s income on it, but short of dragging the information out of her with red-hot pincers I was stuck. Probably I wouldn’t get it even then. I turned to the other woman, Pythia. ‘Who opened the back door?’ I said.

  I thought she was going to faint. ‘Pardon, sir?’

  ‘The tiles were wet. Someone must’ve opened the door and let the rain in.’

  She was dish-rag grey and shaking. ‘The back door’s bolted, sir.’

  ‘Sure. It is now. But the floor was still wet. Damp, rather. It’d been mopped. My guess is whoever bolted the door, or rebolted it, maybe, cleaned up first.’

  Niobe was staring at her. ‘Pythia …’ she said.

  Pythia didn’t look at her. ‘I swear to the Lady Diana, sir –’

  ‘Pythia, this is important.’ The old woman was obviously terrified, but I couldn’t let up now. ‘I need the truth, okay?’

  ‘The back door was open?’ That was Niobe. She was still staring at Pythia.

  The other slave’s eyes flicked between us. Her mouth opened and closed.

  ‘I didn’t mean any harm, sir,’ she whispered finally. ‘I swear I didn’t. Sir, if you tell the master he’ll –’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’ Shit! If the back door had been open all the time then this was a whole new ball game! ‘All I want is the truth. Was the door open or not?’

  ‘It was bolted at the start of the evening, sir, I swear!’ The old woman was mumbling so hard it was difficult to pick out the words. ‘I made sure myself.’

  ‘But not later?’

  ‘After the lady was found I saw the bolts had been slipped. I put them back, sir, just that, and I cleaned up like you said. The door was closed, there wasn’t much water. By the sweet Mother, sir, I swear I didn’t mean any harm!’

  I turned away. Dear holy Jupiter, it’d been murder after all! Or at least it could have been murder.

  We were getting somewhere at last. Now I needed time to think.

  4.

  I walked back to the Caelian despite the rain. It felt funny not turning up Victory Incline to the old house on the Palatine, but we were settling in nicely to the new place on Fabricius Street. It must’ve been the fastest sale on record. Three months back we’d been twiddling our thumbs in Brindisi waiting for a favourable wind to take the ship we’d booked passage on back to Athens when a messenger had arrived hotfoot from my stepfather Priscus to say that one of his antiquities-nut cronies had fallen off his perch unexpectedly (the guy was ninety) and his house was being put on to the market. Perilla had talked me round and that was that. Half our stuff was still the other
side of the Adriatic, mind, and it would stay there until the sea lanes opened again in two months’ time, but, hell, we could rough it. The only slug in the salad was that the new place was within shouting distance of Mother’s. Staving off dinner invitations without starting a major family feud was going to be much trickier in future. Not just dinner invitations, either: our compost heap was already the richer for a couple of Phormio’s more outré efforts that Mother had sent round to make sure we were eating properly. If properly’s the word. I’m not too sure about eating, either.

  Bathyllus was waiting as usual with the obligatory jug when I pushed past the door-slave and got rid of my sopping cloak and mantle. The wine was steaming hot with a touch of cinnamon, just the thing after a wet, chilly walk all the way from Market Square; freshly hot, too, not a reheat. I’ve given up wondering how the little guy knows I’m coming home. Maybe he keeps a tame augur in the cupboard.

  ‘The mistress around, Bathyllus?’ I sipped the wine carefully as the cup thawed my hands out.

  ‘Yes, sir. And the new water clock’s arrived.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yeah.’ I’d forgotten they were delivering the brute this morning. Perilla had seen it on one of her forays to the chichi shops in the Saepta, and she’d been immediately captivated. Me, I had my doubts. Machinery of any kind isn’t my bag, and some of those Greek gizmos are too clever for their own good. Or anyone else’s. Well, we’d just have to hope for the best. I picked up the jug from the tray and carried it with the cup through to the atrium.

  ‘Ah, you’re back, Marcus.’ The lady was supervising four beefy slaves who’d obviously just finished setting the thing up against the wall in the corner. They were looking pretty chewed; when Perilla supervises, she supervises. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Tell you later.’ I set the jug down on a side table and laid the customary smacker between her chin and nose. ‘Gods! That’s a clock?’

  The thing was at least five foot high by three broad, with a reservoir at the top and a maze of bronze piping beneath. Halfway up, a winged Victory with a simpering grin and a tutu held a pointer against a vertical scale with the numbers one to twelve marked on it, on the other side of which stood a titan with his hammer raised above an anvil. At the bottom two chubby-cheeked-and-buttocked cherubs were poised over a basin.

  ‘Right, Zosimus, fill her up!’ snapped one of the deliverymen; obviously the foreman, because he was standing well back with his hands through the belt of his tunic.

  I watched fascinated as another guy shinned up a ladder with a bucket and emptied it into the reservoir.

  The foreman stepped forward and cleared his throat. ‘These are the calibration valves, madam.’ He touched two egg-bound ducks in bronze part the way down two central pipes. ‘They’re in the off position at present. The one on the left is for day, the one on the right for night. If one is open, the other must be closed. You understand?’

  Jupiter! Complications already! I didn’t like the sound of this, but Perilla was nodding.

  ‘The calibration is simple. As the days lengthen during the first half of the year the left-hand duck’s beak is advanced at the rate of one notch on the kalends and ides of each month, while the right-hand duck – the night-duck, that is – is rotated in the opposite direction by a similar amount, thus matching the water flow for each pipe to the corresponding lengthening and shortening of the daylight and night-time hours. At the equinox the procedure is of course reversed for each duck. No messing around with wax to be added and removed to control the flow, you see.’ He smiled a superior smile. ‘This is a very sophisticated model.’

  The lady was beaming. ‘But that’s absolutely marvellous! Most ingenious! Isn’t it, Marcus?’

  I grinned at her weakly. Yeah, well, I’d take her word for it. One thing was sure: I wasn’t going to touch this bastard machine with a bargepole. Sophisticated was right; it sounded smarter than I was, for a start.

  ‘The Victory figure, of course, indicates the hour, and at its commencement the titan will strike his anvil bell. The water in the lower part of the system empties automatically at the close of the twelfth daytime and night-time hours respectively’ – the guy indicated the basin with the cherubs – ‘bringing the indicator back to its starting point. Your slaves then return the voided water to the reservoir by draining the basin into a bucket via the spigot which you will see at its base, and reset the valves for the appropriate upcoming time period, whereupon the cycle is repeated.’ He smiled. ‘Is all that clear, madam? Or do you have any questions?’

  Gods! My brain had gone numb. What was wrong with an old-fashioned sundial? Sure, this superintelligent bugger told you every hour out of the twenty-four but personally I had better things to do with my sleeping hours than pad downstairs to a freezing atrium and check what the time was. And Bathyllus and the lads were going to just love it to bits.

  Besides, I had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

  ‘Perfectly clear, thank you.’ Perilla was looking like the cat that got the sturgeon. ‘And, as I said, most ingenious. Would you set it going for us, please?’

  ‘Of course, madam.’ He turned to the guy with the bucket. ‘What’s the time, Zosimus?’

  There was a terrible silence while the bucket-slave shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Uh…’ he said finally, and blushed to his ears.

  I grinned; so much for the cutting edge of engineering science. ‘The garden’s out that way, pal,’ I said. ‘Only it’s overcast at present, so I wouldn’t bother. Why don’t you just set the thing for the sixth hour and we’ll make allowances?’

  ‘Right. Right.’ The foreman’s smile had slipped: I had the impression Archimedes here felt his professional integrity was being compromised, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. ‘Advancing the daytime duck to the limit of its screw opens the system completely. I would advise you, madam, never to try this yourself or allow your slaves to do so. The mechanism is extremely delicate and although the operation is completely safe in competent hands it is best left to a trained hydraulics engineer such as myself.’ Yeah; and I’d bet consultation fees were sky-high into the bargain. This looked like costing me an arm and a leg.

  He twisted the valve. Water gurgled alarmingly in the pipes, wheels spun, the winged figure lurched upwards on its pole and the titan suddenly went crazy.

  Tingtingtingtingting…

  When the pointer touched the six the guy turned the valve back and it stopped. Well, so far so good. Maybe the thing worked after all.

  The gurgling changed to a steady drip … drip … drip.

  ‘You, uh, wouldn’t have a silent model, would you, friend?’ I said.

  He glared at me. ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t. This clepsydra is the most advanced of its kind.’

  Yeah, right. Even so, the drips were getting on my nerves already. ‘Fine. Fine,’ I said. ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He turned back to Perilla. ‘As you can see, madam, it is now in the standard operating mode. I have set the duck for the kalends of December. This notch here’ – he pointed – ‘represents the corresponding night-duck position. The instrument is now fully functional and should require no further attention apart from the ongoing procedures I have outlined. However in the unlikely event that you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Zosimus, the ladder.’

  They left.

  Perilla lay down on the reading couch. ‘Well, Marcus,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your morning.’

  I told her. The basics, anyway.

  ‘But that’s dreadful! The poor girl! You think it was suicide?’

  ‘It’s a prime possibility, sure.’ The jug of wine was beside me, at the end of my own couch. I topped up the cup and took a slug. The clock went drip … drip … drip in its corner while I tried to ignore it. ‘There’s the way she died, for a start. And there was no sign of a struggle. The main problem with suicide is why.’

  ‘Pregnancy?’ Perilla’s no fool; given
the shocking fact that a Vestal had killed herself, pregnancy’s the obvious reason. After all, there’s no way of hiding it and as I say the girl would end up dead in any case. Added to which, a knife in the throat’s a lot cleaner than having to climb down into a pit and wait while they pile the earth on top of you.

  ‘Torquata says no. Absolutely no. Lucius Arruntius agrees, and they’re both very smart cookies who’ve known the girl all her life. Her maid said the same and almost scratched my eyes out for suggesting it. Still, there’s the ring.’

  ‘The ring?’

  I told her about the man’s signet ring Cornelia had been wearing around her neck.

  ‘It could be an innocent keepsake, Marcus. Her father’s, perhaps.’

  ‘Her father’s still alive. Besides, Torquata denied all knowledge. She may’ve been covering up, sure, but if the thing had been innocent and she’d known it was she wouldn’t’ve had any reason to. That ring bugs me. Also there was the girl’s state of mind. Something was worrying her the last few days, even Torquata had to admit that.’

  ‘You know Junia Torquata’s niece is engaged to Prince Gaius, incidentally?’ Perilla had poured herself something from a jug on her own side table. It’d be some whacky fruit juice or other; she was working through everything on offer in Delicatessen Market off the Sacred Way. What they had for December I just didn’t like to think. ‘Junia Claudilla. Her brother Marcus’s girl.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Marcus Junius Silanus was the only one of that family I hadn’t run foul of, and if he was anything like his brothers and had passed it on to his daughter then maybe I was wasting my sympathy. Still, I wouldn’t wish marriage to that loopy egocentric bastard on anyone. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Official word has just come from Capri.’ Perilla sipped at her cup. ‘Bathyllus told me.’ Oh. Right. That put the news up in the death and taxes bracket as far as reliability went. The slave grapevine is shit-hot, and Bathyllus is never wrong. Never. ‘So. Suicide is a distinct possibility, whatever the motive. Death while the balance of the mind was disturbed. Have you any reason to think otherwise?’