Murder on the Appian Way (36 page)

"As we came down into Bovillae, we passed a dead body lying by the road. The corpse was very bloody, with many wounds. I forbade Tedia to look at it, but still she became frightened and urged me to turn back. I paid no heed; I called to the litter bearers to hurry on. As we approached the inn, I saw that a battle had taken place. The front door and the window shutters were all broken and ajar, and there were more dead men lying about. I must admit that I began to feel a bit of trepidation, and I whispered a prayer to Mercury. Milo had spoken of bandits, and now it appeared that these bandits had come down to Bovillae, ransacked the inn and murdered the customers! Where were Milo's men, who supposedly had pursued these bandits? Had they all been killed, or had they fled into the woods? And where were the bandits? I told the bearers to stop. Tedia assisted me from the litter. We went among the fallen men, hoping to find one of them alive. And the first one we came to — was Publius Clodius!"

"You recognized him at once?" The senator had not been expecting to find Clodius, I reasoned, and the face of a dead man, its features robbed of animation, is not always easy to recognize.

"How could I not know him?" said Tedius. "If you had suffered through as many of the man's ranting speeches in the Senate as I have —" He shook his head. "Yet another fellow who gave himself a new name, changing his proud patrician Claudius to the plebeian Clodius just to curry favour with the masses! And actually enrolling himself among the plebeians, giving up his patrician status! His ancestors must have cursed him from Hades. How fitting that he should die on the road named for one of those whose name he mocked." The senator's jaw pulled into a frown. He turned his gaze to the window and seemed lost in thought.

"But you didn't leave him there, in the road," I prompted.

Tedius sighed. "Publius Clodius was a menace to the state. His death was a blessing to Rome, and an even greater blessing to this mountain, which he had done so much to despoil and defile. But he was a fellow senator, after all, a colleague. And a Claudian by blood, no matter what spelling or legal fiction he affected. And once a man is dead, what use is there in despising him? No, it would not do to leave him in the road, like a dead dog. I sent his body on to Rome in my litter, instructing the bearers to deliver it with the greatest respect into the care of his wife."

"But Clodius's Alban villa was nearby. Why did you not have his body taken there?"

"It seemed more fitting to send him to the city."

"And you and your daughter turned back?"

"I certainly had no intention of sitting in a litter beside a bloody corpse for three hours!" Tedius snapped. "Besides, Tedia was by that time quite distraught, and I had begun to fear for our safety. Don't you see, I believed that Clodius and his fellows had been attacked by the same bandits of whom Milo had spoken. It seems silly now, that I hadn't yet figured it out - that it was Milo and Clodius who'd had the battle. But there you have it I took Milo at his word that he'd encountered bandits on the Appian Way, and it appeared to me that the same bandits had also attacked Clodius and his men at the inn in Bovillae, either before meeting Milo or after. Clearly, the road was not safe for myself or my daughter. Tedia and I and my bodyguards returned home on foot"

"You walked all the way?"

"There were no horses to be had. The stable in Bovillae was locked, and all the stable slaves had fled. And me with my bad left leg! That day seems to have ruined it for good." He sighed and smoothed his hands over the blanket which covered his legs. "We made slow progress, as you might imagine. After a while we were overtaken by a troop of armed men coming up from the direction of Bovillae, led by Milo's famous gladiators, Eudamus and Birria. In the midst of them were five or six men with bound hands."

The same prisoners of whom Felix and Felicia had spoken, I thought "Who were these bound men?"

Tedius raised an eyebrow. "That remains a bit of a puzzle, doesn't it? At the time I thought they must be the fictitious bandits of whom Milo had spoken, captured at last by his gladiators. I even gave Eudamus and Birria a salute as they passed." "Did you speak to them?"

"Are such creatures able to speak? To be candid, I was too out of breath to converse, and my leg had begun to ache. I had stopped for a rest, at a spot just below the House of the Vestals. After a while, Tedia and I pressed on. By the time we got back to the shrine of the Good Goddess, Eudamus and Birria had apparently rejoined Milo, and his entourage had moved on."

Milo and the gladiators had gone on to Clodius's villa on the mountainside, I thought, where they proceeded to kill Halicor and strangle the foreman and to search for young Publius while the hapless boy watched. And Fausta ...

"Tell me, Senator, did you not pass Milo's wife on the road, heading back towards Bovillae, on her way to the House of the Vestals?"

"Fausta? No, I didn't see her again that day. And what business would that impious woman have had at the House of the Vestals? I doubt that she herself can remember a time when she was a virgin!"

I saw no reason to mendon the Virgo Maxima's visitor, Eco's "mystery woman". Had Fausta gone to the House of the Vestals before Tedius passed it on his way home? No, that was impossible, since it was the triumphant Eudamus and Birria who would have brought Clodius's ring to Fausta as a trophy, and the gladiators had passed Tedius while he took a rest below the House of the Vestals; if Fausta had then gone back to the house to make her offering, she would certainly have passed Sextus Tedius. And what was I to make of the maddening detail of the unknown prisoners? After all the different accounts I had heard of the clay's events, and all the details I had collected, it seemed to me that not all the parts of the puzzle fitted together, and that a vital piece must still be missing.

My thoughts were interrupted by a woman's voice calling from the hall. "Papa, are you warm enough?" A moment later she appeared in the doorway. At the sight of Eco and me she stiffened and lowered her eyes. "Papa, I didn't realize ..."

"Two visitors from the city, daughter," explained Sextus Tedius. "They come from Pompey. It's nothing that concerns you."

Tedia was a tall, strong-looking woman of middle years, as plain and unadorned as the house in which she lived. She wore no jewellery or makeup. Over her head she wore a white linen mantle tied at the back with a blue ribbon. Why had she never married? She was hardly beautiful, but among her class, marriages are made for money and politics. Perhaps her father had never made the right alliances; or perhaps, because she was an only child and her father a widower, it had been decided that she should stay with him as his caretaker. The role of the dutiful daughter evidently suited her; Tedius had made much of her piety and her devotion to him.

"I came to make sure you were comfortable, Father," she said, keeping her eyes averted.

"I require nothing, daughter. Run along, then."

She left the room.

"Any other questions?" said Tedius. "My leg's begun to ache and I wish to be alone now."

I thought for a moment. "Only one more question. Did you happen to see Marc Antony that day?"

Tedius raised an eyebrow. "Young Antony? I'm not sure that I would know him if I saw him. Wouldn't he have been up in Gaul, with Caesar? Ah no, he's back in Rome, isn't he, campaigning for something - a quaestorship? Comes from a good family, but far too radical for my tastes. He wasn't with Clodius that day, was he? Antony used to be part of that circle of degenerates, before he found his military career. At any rate, no, I didn't see or hear of him that day. Now, I trust that you'll report back to the general that I gave you my full cooperation. Give Gnaeus Pompey my regards when you deliver your reconnaissance."

A slave showed us out. In the foyer, Tedia suddenly joined us. She looked as stern as her father, but kept rubbing her hands together nervously.

"You had no right to come here and pester my father." "Your father agreed to see us. I came on behalf of-" "I know who sent you. I overheard everything." "Everything?"

"My father and I have no secrets from one another." "Is your father aware of that fact?"

My needling stiffened her resolve. She stopped wringing her hand and made them into fists at her sides. Drawn up to her full height, she was a formidable woman. "If Pompey intends to call my father to Rome to be a witness against Milo, it's out of the question. His health is far more delicate than he lets the world know. His leg -"

"There's no talk of a trial and witnesses — not yet, anyway. Are you saying your father would refuse to appear at a trial?"

"I'm saying that you should leave us alone. That's all we want, you know, the people in these parts. To be left alone. Why you people from the city must continually come here, making trouble ..."

"Your father looks like a man who can take care of himself."

"Do you judge everything by its appearance?" said Tedia, ushering us out the door and closing it behind us.

When we returned to Pompey's villa that afternoon, it seemed to me that our work in the vicinity of Mount Alba was done. The essential truth of what had happened that day on the Appian Way appeared evident, and though some questions remained unanswered, those riddles could best be solved in Rome, if at all. I suggested to Eco that we head back to the city the next morning.

He disagreed. "But Papa, didn't you tell me you can't think straight in the city? That your head is clearer here in the countryside? Let's stay on a while longer."

"But Bethesda and Diana, and Menenia and the twins —"

"They're all perfectly safe with Pompey looking after them, probably safer than they will be after we return and Pompey takes back his guards. We haven't yet talked to anyone in Aricia, where Clodius addressed the town senate, or to anyone in Lanuvium, where Milo was supposedly heading to install a priest. Pompey's a military man; he'll expect a very thorough report."

"Eco, if I didn't know better I'd suspect that you want to stay here at Pompey's villa for as long as you can, simply to enjoy the food and the baths and the massages."

"And the fabulous view, Papa. Don't forget the view."

"Eco!"

"Well, why shouldn't we take advantage of the Great One's hospitality while we can? You need some relaxation, Papa; the turmoil of the city has tied you into knots. And there's always the chance that if we keep digging for a while longer we'll uncover something completely unexpected ..."

So I allowed Eco to persuade me to stay on for a few more days at Pompey's Alban villa. The meals were sumptuous, the baths steaming, the beds luxurious, the servants obsequious. And the views — of the hidden lake mirroring the stars at night, of the peak of Mount Alba haloed by the rising sun, of morning mist moving like smoke through the woods, of the sun sinking like a blood red disk into the distant sea-offered unending fascination. But in the end our time seemed ill spent, for though we made numerous inquiries of numerous people, making forays to Alicia and Lanuvium and back to Bovillae, we discovered nothing new about the circumstances of Clodius's death, and nothing that contradicted or filled the gaps in what we had already learned.

I noticed, in our trips up and down the Appian Way, that Felicia seemed to have abandoned her shrine, and her brother Felix his altar. They had simply disappeared. Either they had taken my advice, I thought, or else I had given it too late.

I tired of the luxury of Pompey's villa. I grew impatient to return to Rome. I missed my family and worried about them. I wanted to know what had become of Pompey's plan to have the Senate invoke the Ultimate Decree and to give him authority to restore order. Travellers and messengers brought news to Mount Alba, but it was hard to trust their stories, especially since they often contradicted one another. Had Pompey been granted military control of Italy, and left the city to levy troops? Had elections at last been scheduled? Had there been more riots? Had formal charges of murder been lodged against Milo? I heard all these things, which were credible enough, but what was I to make of the tale that Caesar had been seen in the Forum, thinly disguised, or that Milo had killed himself, or that Pompey had been assassinated by a group of radical senators at a meeting in his theatre? I had complained that a man could not think in the city, but after a while the confusion and ignorance in the countryside were even more maddening.

And so Eco, Davus and I set out on a morning that was decidedly more springlike than wintry, so mild in fact that we rode without our cloaks. We should have arrived in the city not long after midday, but a sudden gathering of thunderclouds opened over our heads, forcing us to take refuge in the inn at Bovillae until late in the afternoon. We set out again as the day was waning. Shadows were long, verging into twilight when we at last approached the outskirts of the city.

Be careful passing the Monument of Basilius, goes the commonplace warning. We were not careful enough.

Vigilance alone may not save a man, but it may at least show him the faces of his adversaries. That would have counted for much, in the days that followed; or it might have meant the end of me for good, if I had got a better look at them.

As we passed the monument, I noticed a few dozing drunkards slouched against the wall, broad-brimmed hats pulled down to cover their eyes. By the turn of his head, I saw that Eco took note of them as well. Without a word, we both dismissed them as harmless. But they must have been waiting to spring. There must have been a scout on the road, alerting them that we were corning. They may have been watching and waiting for hours, or days.

I heard a shuffle of footsteps behind us, and then a cry from Davus. As I turned to look, something heavy but soft, like a club wrapped in padding, struck the back of my head. I lost my balance and clutched at the reins. Something gripped my leg and pulled. I fell. Earth and sky changed places. In the confusion I caught a glimpse of Davus flying upward from his horse, his arms outstretched and flailing as if he was climbing an invisible ladder. In one hand he held his dagger. He must have realized what was happening and had time to draw it before we were attacked. But his horse had reared wildly, out of his control If he had been a better horseman ...