Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (39 page)

The girl was young and pretty with long black hair and creamy skin that glowed like honey in the soft light from the lamp in her hand. Had she been a courtesan, her looks would have been unremarkable; for a mere serving girl, her beauty seemed absurdly extravagant. Chrysogonus was famous for surrounding himself with pretty decorations and toys.

‘These are the men,’ Rufus explained. ‘Can you take them upstairs quietly, so no one will notice?’

The girl nodded and smiled, as if he were foolish even to ask. Then her lips parted, she made a tiny gasp and spun around. The door behind her had begun to open.

The room was low and narrow, lined with shelves and crammed with bottles, urns, bowls, and sacks. Garlics hung from the ceiling, and the musty odour of flour was heavy in the air. I backed into one corner as deeply as I could, pushing Tiro behind me. At the same instant Rufus slid one arm around the girl’s waist and pulled her close, pressing his mouth over hers.

The door opened. Rufus kissed the girl a moment longer and then they drew apart.

The man in the doorway was tall and broad, so large he almost filled the frame. Lit from behind, his hair made a shimmering golden halo around his darkened face. He chuckled softly and stepped closer. The girl’s lamp, quivering in her hand, lit his face from below. I saw the blue of his eyes and the dimple in his broad jaw, the high cheekbones and the smooth, serene brow. He was only paces away and could surely have seen me between the clay pots and urns had it not been for the darkness. I realized the girl was intentionally blocking the light with her body, blinding him with the lamp and casting us into deeper shadow.

‘Rufus,’ he said at last, ending with a lingering hiss, as if it were not a name but a sigh. He said it again, slurring it and placing a strange accent on the vowels. His voice was deep and resonant, playful, showy, as intimate as a touch. ‘Sulla is asking for you. Sorex is about to dance. A meditation on the death of Dido – have you seen it? Sulla would hate for you to miss it.’

There was a long pause. I imagined I could see the backs of Rufus’s ears turn red, but perhaps it was only the lamplight shining through.

‘Of course, if you’re busy, I’ll tell Sulla that you’ve gone out for a walk.’ Chrysogonus spoke slowly, like a man with no reason to hurry. He turned his attention to the girl. He ran his eyes over her body and reached for her. He touched her; where, I couldn’t see. She stiffened and gasped and the lamp shook in her hand. Tiro gave a jerk behind me. I blindly laid my hand over his and squeezed it hard.

Chrysogonus took the lamp from the girl’s hand and set it on a shelf. He loosened her gown where it was clasped at her throat and slid it over her shoulders. It fluttered down her body like doves descending until she stood naked. Chrysogonus stepped back, pursing his broad, fleshy lips and looking from Rufus to the girl with a heavy-lidded stare. He laughed softly. ‘If you want her, young Messalla, of course you can have her. I deny my guests nothing. Whatever pleasure you can find in my house is yours without asking. But you needn’t do it like a schoolboy, cowering here in the pantry. There are plenty of comfortable rooms upstairs. Have the girl take you there. Parade her through the house naked if you want – ride her like a pony! It won’t be the first time.’ He touched her again, his arm moving as if he were tracing a mark across her naked breasts. The girl gasped and quivered, but stood absolutely still.

He turned and seemed about to go, then turned back. ‘But don’t take too long. Sulla will forgive me if you miss the dance, but later on Metrobius will be introducing a new song by . . . ah, well, by some sycophant or other – who can remember all their names? The poor fool’s here tonight, trying to curry favour. I understand the song is a homage to the gods for sending a man to stop the civil strife: “Sulla, Rome’s favourite, saviour of the Republic,” I think it begins. I’m sure it goes on in the same nauseatingly pious vein – except. . . .’ Chrysogonus smiled and laughed behind pursed lips, a low, gravelly laugh that he seemed to keep to himself, like a man rolling coins in his hand. ‘Except that Metrobius tells me he’s taken the liberty of adding a few ribald verses of his own; scandalous enough to get the young author’s head chopped off. Imagine the look on the silly poet’s face when he hears his homage turned into insults right in front of Sulla, who of course will grasp the jest at once and play along, stamping his feet and pretending to be outraged – just the sort of joke Sulla adores. It will be the evening’s high point, Rufus; for some of us, anyway. Sulla will be very disappointed if you’re not there to share it.’ He made an insinuating smile, stared at them for a long moment, then retreated and shut the door behind him.

No one moved. I watched the flickering caress of the lamplight as it licked in silhouette about the sleek flesh of the girl’s thighs and hips. Finally she stooped and gathered up her gown. Tiro, wide-eyed and resolute, pushed his way from behind me and helped her cover herself. Rufus studiously looked elsewhere.

‘Well,’ I finally said, ‘I believe the master of the house himself has given us permission to go snooping upstairs. Shall we?’

XXV

The door through which Chrysogonus had vanished led into a short hallway. A narrow passage on the left opened onto the noise of a busy kitchen. The curtain which draped the opening on the right still swayed from Chrysogonus’s passing. The girl led us through neither passage but instead to a door, at the end of the hall, that opened onto a winding flight of stone steps.

‘There’s another staircase in the room where the master entertains,’ she whispered, ‘very showy, very fine marble, with a statue of Venus in the centre. But this is the stair the slaves use. If we pass anyone, just ignore them, even if they look at us oddly. Or better yet, give me a pinch hard enough to make me squeal and pretend you’re all drunk. They’ll think the worst for sure, and then they’ll leave us alone.’

But we met no one on the stairs, and the upstairs hall was deserted. From somewhere below we could hear the muffled music of flutes and lyres, and an occasional burst of applause or laughter – presumably in appreciation of Sorex’s dance – but the upper floor was dim and quiet. The hallway was quite broad and fabulously decorated, opening onto wide, high rooms even more sumptuously appointed. Every surface seemed to be carpeted, draped, inlaid, or painted. Everywhere the eye turned there was a riot of colours, textures, and shapes.

‘Vulgar, isn’t it?’ said Rufus with a noble’s disdain. Cicero would have agreed, but the furnishings were vulgar only for being so cramped and ostentatiously displayed. What impressed me most was the consistency of Chrysogonus’s taste in acquiring only the best and most expensive handicraft and artwork – embossed silver, vessels of Delian and Corinthian bronze, embroidered coverlets, plush carpets from the East, finely carved tables and chairs with inlays of shell and lapis, intricate mosaics of richly coloured tiles, superb marble statues and fabulous paintings. That all these creations had been looted from the proscribed there could be no doubt; otherwise it would have taken a lifetime to accumulate so many things of such high quality and disparate origin. Yet no one could say that Chrysogonus had looted blindly. Let others take the chaff; for himself he had chosen only the best, with the trained eye for quality developed by slaves of the rich who dream of someday being free and rich themselves. I was glad that Cicero was not with us; to see Sulla’s former slave living in stolen luxury on such a grandiose scale might have agitated his delicate bowels beyond endurance.

The hallway narrowed. The rooms became less resplendent. The girl lifted a heavy hanging, allowing us to pass beneath; she dropped it, and all sound from downstairs vanished. The world changed as well, and we were abruptly back in a house of plain plastered walls and smoke-stained ceilings. These were the rooms of necessity – storage chambers, slave quarters, work rooms – yet even here the booty was piled high. Crates of bronze vessels were stacked in the corners, rolled carpets drooped like sleepy watchmen against the walls, chairs and tables were wrapped in heavy cloth and piled to the ceiling.

The girl stole through the maze, glanced furtively about her, then motioned for us to follow. She drew back a curtain.

‘What are you doing up here?’ asked a petulant voice. ‘Isn’t there a party on tonight?’

‘Oh, leave her alone,’ said another, speaking through a mouthful of food. ‘Just because Aufilia brings me extra portions and turns her nose up at your ugly face . . . but who’s this?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘don’t get up. Stay where you are. Finish your meal.’

The two of them sat on the hard floor, eating cabbage and barley from cracked clay bowls by the light of a single lamp. The room was small and narrow with bare walls; the tiny flame carved their wrinkles into caverns and cast their stooped shadows all the way to the ceiling. I stayed in the doorway. Tiro moved in close behind me, peering over my shoulder. Rufus hung behind.

The lean, petulant one snorted and scowled at his food. ‘For what you want, Aufilia, this room’s too small. Can’t you find an empty room elsewhere with a couch big enough for the three of you?’

‘Felix!’ the other hissed, prodding his companion with his pudgy elbow and gesturing with the other. Felix glanced up and blanched as he noticed the ring on my finger. He had thought the three of us were all slaves, looking for a place to have a party of our own.

‘Forgive me, Citizen,’ he whispered, bowing his head. They fell silent, waiting for me to speak. Before, they had been human beings, one of them lean and irritable, the other fat and good-natured, their faces alive in the warm glow as they fed themselves and parried with the girl. In an instant I saw them turn grey and indistinguishable, wearing the identical blank face worn by every slave of every harsh master who ever breathed in Rome.

‘Look at me,’ I said. ‘Look at me! And if you aren’t going to finish eating, then put down your bowls and stand up, so that I can see you eye to eye. We don’t have much time.’

‘The knife was out before you could see it,’ Felix was saying. ‘In a flash.’

‘Yes, literally in a flash!’ Chrestus stood beside him, nervously rubbing his pudgy hands, looking from his friend’s face to mine and back again.

Once I had explained who I was and what I wanted, they were amazingly willing, even eager, to speak to me. Tiro stood quietly beside me, his face pensive in the lamplight. I had posted Rufus at the nearest chamber along the main hallway so that he might turn back any wandering guests. I sent the girl with him; she was his excuse for loitering upstairs, and besides that, there was no reason to involve her any deeper, or to trust her with the full truth of what we had come for.

‘We never had a chance to help the master. They threw us out of the way, onto the ground,’ said Felix. ‘Strong men, as big as horses.’

‘And stinking of garlic,’ Chrestus added. ‘They’d have killed us, too, if Magnus hadn’t stopped them.’

‘Then you’re sure it was Magnus?’ I said.

‘Oh, yes.’ Felix shuddered. ‘I didn’t see his face, he was careful about that. But I heard his voice.’

‘And the master called his name, remember, just before Magnus stabbed him the first time,’ said Chrestus. ‘ “Magnus, Magnus, curse you!” in a thin little voice. I still hear it in my dreams.’

Felix pursed his thin lips. ‘Ah, yes, you’re right. I’d forgotten that.’

‘And the other two assassins?’ I asked.

They shrugged in unison. ‘One of them might have been Mallius Glaucia, though I can’t be certain,’ said Felix. ‘The other man had a beard, I remember.’

‘A red beard?’

‘Perhaps. Hard to tell in that light. Even bigger than Glaucia and he stank of garlic.’

‘Redbeard,’ I muttered. ‘And how was it that Magnus stopped them from killing you?’

‘He forbade it. “Stop, you fools!”’ growled Chrestus, as if playing a role. ‘ “They’re valuable slaves. Damage either one and it comes out of your wages!” Valuable, he called us – and look where we end up, oiling sandals and burnishing Master Golden-Born’s chamber pots.’

‘But of value nonetheless,’ I said. ‘As if Magnus planned to inherit you himself.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Felix nodded. ‘That must have been part of the plan all along, that he and Capito would somehow get their hands on the master’s goods. Who can imagine how they did it? And now we end up back in the city, except that we never see the city. The Golden One keeps us trapped in these stuffy rooms day and night. You’d think we were being punished. Or hidden away, the same as he hides half his loot away. What kind of coincidence is it, I ask you, that I can look around these very rooms and see so many things that came directly from the master’s old house by the Circus? Those chairs you saw stacked out there, and the yellow vase in the hallway, and the Alexandrian tapestry rolled up there in the corner – they all belonged to the master before he was murdered. No, we’re not the only property that ended up in Chrysogonus’s hands.’