A Pattern of Blood (5 page)

I nodded. It was a common enough story. In Roman law, of course, a man, even a grown man, is under tutelage until his father dies, dependent on him for every penny and unable to enter any legal contract without his permission. It is not a recipe for family happiness. I think we Celts manage these things better.

‘And as for that woman,’ Maximilian went on, ‘he’s becoming a laughing stock. He is completely blind where Julia’s concerned. And she’s turned him against me. She has made him turn me out to live in a measly flat, and then when I come to visit him because he’s ill, what does he do? Flies into a temper, sends me away and asks for Julia. And all I did was ask for a few denarii.’ He stopped. ‘I’d better make sure they’ve found her. If she doesn’t go to him, it will be my fault again.’

He went to the courtyard door. But before he could put a hand to the latch, the door burst open and one of the two slaves came panting in. He flung himself at Maximilian’s feet.

‘Master! Master, come quickly. It is Quintus Ulpius, your father. He has been attacked again. We found him slumped on the floor, blood pouring from a wound in his back. He had been crawling to the doorway. We raised his head, and he managed to whisper to us. He asked us to fetch Sollers, but I cannot find him. So I have come to you . . . Oh, young master, come quickly. I fear your father is dead.’

There was a stunned silence, and then Maximilian spoke.

‘Dead? My father? He can’t be! Let me see!’ He threw us an agonised look, then, thrusting the slave aside with his foot, rushed out past us into the rear courtyard.

Marcus and I exchanged glances – it is rather an awkward social situation, finding yourself the guest of a man who has been unexpectedly murdered – but in the end there was nothing to do but follow. Out we went, skirting the herb gardens and flower beds, and when the boy disappeared in through another door we simply went in after him.

The room we entered was a large one, and formed the corner between the main block and one of the front wings of the house. It was not, as I expected, a master bedroom, but a kind of additional reception room, obviously designed as a place where the master of the house could meet his clientes without the inconvenience of having them trespass on his private apartments. It was lavishly decorated, with real blue-green glass in the windows, a painted frieze on the plasterwork and a fine tiled pavement on the floor. It boasted no less than three doors, not only the one by which we had just entered, but two interior folding doors: one to the side, which evidently led to the rest of the house, and another door straight ahead, through which we could see a long, thin ante-room, presumably for appellants to wait in, since there were stone benches around the wall and a sturdy central table for cumbersome gifts. By contrast, a carved and gilded couch was set in the centre of the main room, piled with embroidered pillows and blankets, with an elegant low table beside it. A lighted brazier of beaten metal stood to one side, and an exquisite but uncomfortable-looking stool to the other. There was another, similar stool against the wall. The effect was more like an emperor’s court than the home of a private citizen.

It was, however, a private home, and the citizen was there to prove it. His presence was a primitive outrage in this most civilised of rooms. He was lying, stretched out, face down upon the floor, like a kind of bizarre mosaic. Part of his toga had been pulled aside, revealing his shoulder and under-tunic. I could glimpse the bindings around the ribs, where the earlier wound had been dressed, there was a reddened bruise on the back of the exposed arm and the hilt of a dagger was still visible, driven in under the shoulder blade. A dreadful seeping stain was making an additional red-brown stripe on his curial robe, before running down to mingle with the black, brown and white of the dancing deities depicted in the tiles.

Maximilian had stopped short just inside the doorway, staring, and was gnawing the middle joint of his finger. The impression he gave was not so much of grief as of consternation, like a pupil waiting for his
paedagogus
knowing he has failed to construe his text. He did not look in our direction.

Marcus nodded to me, and I stole forward, bent down and tentatively raised the head. It felt absurdly heavy, as if each grizzled iron-grey curl was made of iron indeed. The head was half-turned towards me, and as I raised it I could see the face. The jaw had dropped open: there was blood-flecked foam on the lips, and a pair of fishlike eyes stared at me, lifeless. The effect was grotesque, a kind of macabre astonishment, as if death had taken an unwarrantable liberty by arriving so unexpectedly. I lowered the head hastily.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he? The slaves were right.’ That was Maximilian, his voice sharp and childish.

I got to my feet. ‘It seems so.’

‘They’ll blame me. You watch! Julia and Sollers. They’ll say it was my fault he was unattended. Just because I sent the slaves away from the door. I didn’t want them listening in. But you’re my witnesses. I only came to ask him for money . . .’

‘We are your witnesses that you were here,’ I pointed out gently. ‘We cannot testify to what you said. We have only your word for that.’

‘Anyway,’ Marcus said slowly, ‘you won’t need to ask him for money now, will you, Maximilian? You will be free to make your own decisions. I think you said he was intending to disinherit you. Presumably that means he hadn’t done so yet – and now, of course, he never will.’

Maximilian brightened. ‘That’s true, isn’t it? So his fortune will come to me. Or at least most of it. You’re right. I’m no longer under tutelage. No more measly
peculium
– he never gave me enough to live on. Well, much good it has done him! Now I can spend money on what I like.’ He sounded delighted. I wondered if he realised that Marcus had just made out a very good case for suspecting him of murder. Parricide by disaffected sons who hope to gain financial independence must be one of the most frequent crimes in the Empire.

Maximilian, however, seemed oblivious. ‘I wonder how much money there is?’

The spectacle of this arrogant and idle young man greedily assessing the wealth of the father who lay dead at his feet was, to say the least, singularly unattractive. I knew Marcus, and when I saw him crisping his fingers, I knew that he, too, longed to land a satisfying punch on that peevish, spoiled face.

My patron said sharply, ‘We shan’t know that until the will is publicly read in the forum. There may be heavy expenses.’ The tone of his voice suggested that, under the circumstances, he hoped the inheritance would be severely depleted. ‘No doubt your father has left instructions for memorial games, or even a building to be erected in his honour, and, of course, there may be co-heirs. Someone may even enter a
querela
against the testament, on the grounds that your father intended to revoke it.’

Maximilian smirked. ‘It would need seven witnesses to prove that. Besides, Julia wouldn’t take it to trial. If a will is found to be invalid, most of the money tends to end up in the hands of the treasury, and then she wouldn’t get any either.’

‘Then let’s hope for your sake that it isn’t invalid already. I presume he has made a new will since he remarried? Otherwise she can claim under the praetor’s edict.’

There was a pause while Maximilian took this in. Then he said, rather petulantly, ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. But I’m his next of kin.’ His face fell. ‘I suppose that also means I’ll be responsible for all these contracts he’s entered into. The gods alone know how many denarii that will run to. And I’ll have to succeed him as decurion, and that will be more expense. Always supposing that that woman hasn’t spent it all, anyway. Oh, Mercury! Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.’

He was interrupted by a voice from the door behind us. ‘Maximilian, I see, is demonstrating his usual filial piety. I hear that his father has been stabbed again. Maximilian’s grief is truly heart-rending, don’t you find?’ He came forward as he spoke.

I recognised him at once. He was a tallish, grey-haired man, slightly balding and running a little to fat, but with that unforgettable mobile, intelligent face, and the shrewdest pair of eyes I have ever seen. He was not wearing a toga today – not even a plain white one like mine – though as an ex-army surgeon he was obviously entitled to one. Instead he wore a long amber robe like an outsized tunic, tied at the waist. Even so, he had an air of such professional competence about him that even Marcus stepped back and allowed him to speak. ‘I am Hermogenes Valerius Sollers, citizens. The slaves told me I was needed.’ He stopped, staring at the body where it lay. ‘Great Hermes! What is he doing on the floor?’

‘He has been stabbed,’ Marcus said, rather unnecessarily, since the fact was only too evident. ‘He was crawling to the door when the servants found him.’

A look of genuine horror crossed Sollers’s face. ‘Crawling to the door! Then he was alive after he was stabbed! Poor man, how he must have suffered. Did he have time . . . did he manage to tell them who had done this to him?’

Marcus shook his head. ‘It seems not.’

Sollers said, ‘But if he had strength enough to crawl, perhaps there is still hope. Excuse me, citizens. I must examine him.’ He brushed past us and went to kneel beside Quintus. ‘My poor old friend, what has happened here?’ Deftly, he began to run his hands over the body, lifting back the tunic to examine the wound.

I watched him as he worked, the clever hands probing the wound, and I was struck once again by his skill. Greek-trained, I guessed, as many doctors were. It was not a difficult deduction, given that he swore by Hermes and spoke slightly accented, although excellent, Latin, but I was pleased with myself for making it. His name, of course, pointed in the same direction, but that was less reliable evidence, since he had probably adopted that when he achieved Roman citizenship.

Wherever he had trained, he was good. The examination could not have been more gentle and painstaking if the body under his hands had been that of his own brother. I could see why Quintus valued him as a companion. Many wealthy men boast of keeping a private physician in their homes, not only to oversee the family’s health, but also to dazzle dinner guests with learned discussions of philosophy and science. Unlike many of his fellow doctors, I thought, Sollers would acquit himself with equal distinction in either role.

We watched him in silence now, as he continued his grim work. At last he got to his feet.

‘We are too late, citizens. He is dead.’ He examined his own bloodstained hands with dismay. I noticed that some of Quintus’s blood had stained his sleeve. ‘This is a tragic welcome to this house. But I am impolite, citizens. And Maximilian, too. What can we say? In the name of my poor dead friend, I greet you. You are Marcus Aurelius Septimus, of course, and you, citizen, must be the pavement-maker. I have heard of you.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘Should I, do you think, remove that dagger, Excellence? We must send for the slaves to arrange Quintus’s body for the funeral, and it is not seemly to leave him with that weapon in him.’

Marcus seemed momentarily startled at being appealed to in this way. Like the rest of us, he had instinctively deferred to Sollers up to now. However, it did not take him long to recollect himself. He rearranged his toga, casually, but so that the aristocratic stripe was more in evidence, and said, briskly, ‘Yes. Do that please. Then we will have them wash this floor, and after that perhaps his wife would like to see him.’

Sollers smiled. ‘At once, Excellence.’ He bent down again, and with a violence that made me avert my eyes, seized the dagger hilt and jerked it free. When I looked again, he was holding the dripping blade. There was an unreal and macabre theatricality about the scene, as if we were all condemned slaves at the playhouse, forced to play our parts to the death in a bloodthirsty tragedy. I have seen men killed before, of course, and Marcus is a frequent visitor to the amphitheatre, but even he paled.

‘I am sorry, citizens.’ Sollers seemed to feel that some explanatory comment was necessary. ‘The weapon had been driven in with some force. As you see, the blade has chipped on a bone.’ He held it out for our inspection. There were fresh bloodstains on his robe, I noticed.

It occurred to me that the killer must have carried similar tell-tale splashes. In fact, when I came to think of it, there was surprisingly little blood. A stabbing can be a horribly messy affair. I said as much to Sollers.

He looked at me in surprise. ‘You are astute, citizen. Yes, there is often much more blood. But the assailant was lucky. I bled Ulpius myself, not an hour ago, to reduce the fever and help him to rest. If he was stabbed shortly after, he would not bleed so fiercely. There would be no spurting. And leaving the blade in the wound would help to staunch it too. The murderer may have escaped with no more than bloodied hands.’

I turned to Marcus, but he was inspecting the weapon, without removing it from Sollers’s hand. It was a vicious dagger, with a short, sharp metal blade and an elaborately carved hilt in some kind of dark wood. It was very unusual.

‘This belonged to Quintus?’ he asked. It seemed a likely explanation. Murderers do not commonly leave behind weapons of such striking individuality.

Sollers surprised me. ‘No, I do not think so. Most likely it belonged to one of the clientes.’ He shrugged. ‘It is my fault, gentlemen. After that attack . . .’ he shot a look at Maximilian, who looked bewildered, ‘I took the precaution of removing all personal weapons and knives from anyone wishing to visit him.’

I nodded. It was unusual, but not unheard of. It is not unknown for people to be asked to leave their blades with a servant. Some dicing dens demand it, for example, and personal visitors to the Emperor are rumoured to be routinely searched at the door for weapons and poisons.

‘You don’t know who owns it?’ Marcus asked.

‘Not for certain. I remember having seen it – it is rather a remarkable object – but I could not swear to the owner.’

‘Well, I could. If anybody deigned to ask me!’ That was Maximilian, more petulant than ever. ‘But no. Here I am, heir presumptive to my father’s estate – so this is my house you are standing in, or it will be very soon – and what happens? Everyone ignores me. Everyone always ignores me, at least while that buffoon is around.’ He gestured savagely at Sollers.