Furies (22 page)

“Yes. He was wholly disreputable looking,” Cleon continued.

“You know the man he’s describing?” Aculeo asked Capito.

“Yes, I believe I may,” Capito said. “A vagrant by the name of Apollonios.”

“Then why is such a monster still running around in the street?” Capito cried. “Why aren’t you doing your job? I was certain he was going to murder me as well.”

“You seem to have survived alright. Anything else you can tell us?”

“Only that I hope for everyone’s sake you catch him, and quickly.” Cleon closed his eyes, putting a limp hand to his sweaty forehead. “Now if it’s all the same to you, I’ve a pounding headache. Mother was right – I never should have come to this cursed city!”

The merchant Harpalus’ pottery factory was a small, windowless building in the Ceramicus, tucked in a squalid section behind the harbour’s edge southeast of Lochias. The still, dry heat from the kiln fire inside the shop was unbearable. A dozen or so exhausted looking slaves were hard at work at narrow wooden benches, their naked backs gleaming with sweat, some of them spinning wet clay on the potters’ wheels at one long table, others etching elegant glazed patterns and designs onto the pretty reed-green faience vases and deep brown urns stacked on the tables. The designs were all of a consistent theme – women and impressively endowed mythical beasts copulating with one another in anatomically unlikely positions, a popular item for the tourists, apparently. A number of ancient looking stone icons were stacked against the wall.

Harpalus was in the midst of haggling with a couple over a knee-high pink granite Egyptian sphinx. He tried his best to ignore the arrival of Aculeo and Capito.

“We need to talk,” Capito said.

“Magistrate Capito, my dear friend, such an honour to see you!” Harpalus gushed. “I’ll be with you in one moment. These lovely people and I were just …”

“Where’s Apollonios?” Aculeo demanded.

The merchant grinned fiercely at him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you could just … oh!” Capito had tipped one of the vases off the table, letting it tumble and smash on the floor. “Please, be careful, Magistrate! Not to worry,” he said, smiling at the customers.

“I’m sure he already told you these pieces are all forgeries,” Capito said to the customers. “Probably made only a year or so ago, then chipped and buried in lye-soaked earth to add a millennium or so of wear. Decent enough quality – I’m sure your friends at home won’t be able to tell the difference.”

“A preposterous accusation!” Harpalus cried. “I’m the most honest and scrupulous of men, I love my customers, I … wait!” The would-be patrons had slipped out the door as quickly as they could. The merchant stared after them, crestfallen. “They were just about to buy.”

Capito shoved him up against the wall, making the nearby tables stacked with pottery rattle. “I hear your brother’s back in Alexandria. I need to talk to him.”

“Apollonios? But …”

“He’s murdered two women, damn you! Now where is he?”

The slaves’ activity at their benches had slowed to a crawl, though they didn’t dare look up at their master. Harpalus glared at them. “Get back to work.” He turned to his visitors. “Let’s go somewhere and talk. Eupolis, you’re in charge until I return. No slacking or I’ll beat you all, I swear!”

Harpalus escaped into his office, fell into a chair and poured himself a cup of undiluted wine, which he quickly drank and followed up with a second.

“When did he get back to town?” Capito demanded.

“Really, Magistrate, Apollonios never …” Harpalus caught a warning glance from the man and slumped back in his chair. “A few months back. He promised he’d stay for a few days only, a week at most, but then he simply … stayed on. What could I do?”

“He murdered a hetaira,” Aculeo said. “Dumped her body like a piece of trash in the canal. Not to mention a slave he murdered in the Sarapeion.”

Harpalus stared at the men, eyes wide. “I don’t believe it. Not my brother.”

“Oh stop it!” Capito snapped. “What of the porne he attacked last year? You remember her, don’t you? He’d have killed her too if those Assyrian sailors hadn’t come along.”

Harpalus sat in silence for a moment, gazing at the unfiltered debris that swirled on the surface of his wine, his mind a thousand miles and many years away. “He’s a war hero, fought in the Battle of Teutoburg, honoured by Tiberius himself.”

“Spinning tales of Teutoburg doesn’t make a man a hero,” Aculeo said. Barely a handful of men were said to have even survived the battle, yet countless old veterans begging for coins on Alexandria’s streets claimed to have been heroes on its blood-soaked battlefields.

“He’s my brother.”

“He’s also a murderer,” Capito growled. “Now, where is he?”

“I don’t know,” the merchant cried, tearing at his tunic. “My oath. I haven’t seen him in days. We had an argument and he hasn’t been back.”

“If I find out you’ve been lying to me, Harpalus, I swear you’ll never …”

Something on Harpalus’ wrist caught Aculeo’s eye. “Where did you get that?”

“This?” the merchant asked, holding up the piece of yellow twine tied around his wrist. “Apollonios asked me to wear it – something about a symbol of Sarapis’ love or some such nonsense. Why? What does it matter?”

“Show us where he sleeps.”

Harpalus reluctantly led them to the backroom of the shop. “Down there,” he said, nodding glumly to a stairwell leading down to the basement.

Aculeo took up an oil lamp and headed down the stairs, Capito right behind him. The ceiling was low and the walls stacked with various figurines, pottery wheels covered in dust and cobwebs and soon-to-be-antique icons. There was little room to move. There, at the far end of the cramped, windowless room, a filthy-looking mattress and some blankets lay on top of the dirt floor. He squatted down beside the mattress, lifted up the blankets. Nothing. He turned over the mattress. Again, nothing. He didn’t know what he might have found, but … The soil was soft in one spot beneath where the mattress had been. Aculeo dug the soft, sandy dirt with his hands. Something wrapped in wax cloth. He removed it from the ground and unwrapped the musty-smelling cloth.

A knife handle missing its blade.

A small dead bird, dry as dust, clumsily wrapped in papyrus.

A trio of mismatched earrings.

A gold fibula, embedded with glittering semi-precious stones.

A small piece of torn blue linen … stained with blood.

“What is it?” Harpalus whispered.

“Your brother’s death sentence,” Aculeo said.

“What pieces am I missing, Aculeo? What is it you’re not telling me?” Capito demanded as the capo brought a jug of wine to their table. Capito was smiling, but it was clear he wasn’t playing about.

“Please trust me,” Aculeo said. “It’s better left unsaid until I know more.”

The Magistrate swirled the wine about in his cup. “It’s well within the privileges of my position to arrest you, even torture you if I thought you had information important to operation of the Empire.”

“Are you planning to torture me, Magistrate?” Aculeo asked irritably.

“I was hoping for a gentler approach to start.”

Aculeo drank some wine – it was terrible stuff, but his thirst got the better of his palate. He wanted to tell someone, anyone, what was going on – the whole thing was driving him mad, but it was terribly risky. The Magistrate was an influential man with good connections, he could be useful up against men like Ralla and Gurculio. But that was part of the problem too. Any inquiries that his office might make could scare them off, force them to cover up, and that would be the end of his chance to learn what had happened to Iovinus. No, it was better to be quiet for now, to stay beneath their notice.

He smiled at Capito. “Better you stay out of this for now. You don’t want the wrong sort people taking an interest in the Junior Magistrate of Alexandria’s fledgling career.”

“Why don’t you let me decide that,” Capito said stiffly.

“You’re too virtuous a man. You wouldn’t be able to let it go. Wait till I have some proof first.”

Capito said nothing for a while, weighing Aculeo’s words as he sipped his wine, reluctantly swishing it about on his palate. Finally he swallowed. “Fine. But I want your oath you’ll involve me when you’re closer. When you have your proof.”

Aculeo held out his hand. “You have my oath.”

Capito smiled and gripped Aculeo’s hand. “We’ll hold off on the torture a little longer then.”

Xanthias was perched at the door when Aculeo returned at the end of the day, exhausted. “Not a word, Xanthias, I just want to sleep,” Aculeo said.

“Yes, Master,” the old slave said without another word, critical or otherwise.

Aculeo looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the matter?”

“You’ve received mail,” Xanthias blurted, nodding towards to the scarred wooden table where a cylindrical leather case sat.

Aculeo felt a chill descend. “Oh?”

“From Rome, the courier said.”

Aculeo sat at the table and picked up the case, turning it slowly in his hands before carefully opening it. A thin scroll slid onto the table, its red wax seal marked with the initials of the family Lucullus. “It’s from Titiana, I imagine,” he mused.

“I believe so, Master,” the slave whispered hoarsely, watching his master carefully, his lower lip trembling.

Aculeo looked sharply up at him. “Have you read it already?”

“The seal remains unbroken, does it not?” Xanthias asked, a thin varnish of defiance coating his anguish.