The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (28 page)

“I don’t think so.”

“Bastard!” Marius spat, and suddenly lunged forwards. But the chief centurion was ready for him and ducked the
blow, knocking the other man’s arm to one side. The blade clattered to the rubble-strewn ground and its owner collapsed beside it, struggling for breath with ragged shallow gasps. Figulus stood over him for a moment, watching the icy hand of death tighten its grasp on the centurion. Then he bent down and stretched his hand towards the purse hanging from Marius’s belt.

“I think you owe me something.”

Marius reached down towards his belt, shaking fingers scrabbling to defend his purse, but Figulus calmly knocked the dying man’s hand aside, then helped himself to one gold coin.

I
t was on the Nones of September in the second year of the reign of Emperor Vespasian, many years ago now, that our involvement in the events that I am recounting
here began. For reasons that will become clear as I continue my narrative, I could not record this at the time, as is my custom – as, indeed, is my task. As is, I fear, my excuse for being.

I am Plautus Maximilianus Aureus, a member of the household of the great orator and barrister Marcus Fabius Quintilianus and, as I describe myself, his perpetual student. Somewhat higher than a servant, and somewhat lower than a protégé, I earn my keep by taking down on wax tablets, in my own special shorthand, such speeches, comments, and ideas of Quintilian as are worth recording for use in the series of texts for the training of youth that Quintilian is writing, intends to write, or may someday get around to writing. When I am not attending my patron Quintilian, I transcribe my shorthand onto scraps of parchment or papyrus and organize the comments into a variety of different categories, such as: oratory, law, government, nature, music, human conduct, instruction for the young, instruction for those who would teach the young, and humour. The humour category is not overly crowded.

The fame of my patron as a barrister and rhetorician had been on the rise for the past few years, but I don’t believe that even he had any idea just how high it had risen until that morning, when a squad of the praetorian guard appeared at the gate of Quintilian’s villa. “I would speak with Fabius Quintilianus the orator,” the decurion in charge told Peris, our gatekeeper.

Peris yawned and stretched, and tried to act as if having six men in bright, shiny armour appear at our gate was an everyday affair. “It is barely past sunrise,” he told the decurion. “I doubt whether my master is yet up.”

“I am on the emperor’s business,” the decurion replied sternly. “For me, he will arise.”

There was a time, and not so long ago, when having a
squad of the emperor’s praetorian guard appear at your front gate was a good reason for fleeing out the back gate, no matter how noble your family or how high your position. But the days of Caligula and Nero are in the past, and our present emperor is not known for intemperate rages or random murders. Still, the gods themselves have been known to fly into sudden fits over minor misunderstandings, so to my mind a sudden summons from Emperor Vespasian might not be cause for flight, but a little moment of sheer terror might be understandable.

The decurion told my mentor, who came grumbling to the door of his bedroom, that his orders were to take Quintilian directly to the emperor, and as quickly as possible. With that, Quintilian dressed, splashed some water on his face, threw a cloak on over his toga, and said, “Lead on!”

I was already dressed, so I grabbed my sack of fresh wax tablets and fell in behind my mentor. I was so accustomed to accompanying Quintilian everywhere he went that we were halfway to the imperial palace before I realized that I had not been included in the summons, and Quintilian had not actually asked me to join him. Quintilian strode along, impatient with the measured tread of the guardsmen. I scurried to keep up, the sensation in my left leg, crippled from a childhood illness, progressing from a dull ache to a sharp, jarring pain with each step. But I have learned to live with pain.

The thoughts that were a great jumble in my head were of more concern than the pain in my leg, and I will admit they were unworthy of the lessons I have learned at the feet of the great Quintilian. If my mentor had somehow incurred the emperor’s displeasure, would Vespasian throw him into a dungeon, or send him home to commit honourable suicide, or have him dispatched by the short sword of, perhaps, this very decurion that was taking us to the court? And, since I
was with him, would the emperor include me in his displeasure, however expressed, as a matter of course?

We arrived at the east gate of the Golden House, the great palace that Nero had built (although he had died before it was finished, to the relief of all Rome), and were rushed through a series of rooms and courtyards, going deeper and deeper into the inner palace. At each doorway the decurion lifted his left hand, exposing to the guard a sigil he kept cupped in his palm, and announced, “At the emperor’s command!” And the guards stood aside as we hurried through. Shortly we reached what I assumed were the private living quarters of the emperor himself. There were guards scattered all through the vast structure, like golden raisins in a porridge, but here they were clustered closer together and they stood straighter, and their armour was even more highly polished.

The decurion handed us off to a gold-plated centurion, amid much saluting and foot-stomping, and the centurion clasped hands with Quintilian. “They call me Sabatinus,” the centurion told him. “I am to take you directly to the emperor.”

“Do you know what this is about?” Quintilian asked.

“Not a clue. Have you met Vespasian before?”

“Once, briefly. A ceremonial occasion.”

“Then for your information: he dislikes being called ‘emperor’, or ‘Caesar’, or ‘princeps’, or any of the other titles he has to use in public. Call him ‘General Vespasian’, or just ‘General’.”

Centurion Sabatinus took us through a great hall and we entered a corridor wide enough for a goods wagon to pass along without scraping the sides and long enough to require a lusty shout to be heard at the far end. Not that I attempted a lusty shout – that was just my impression. There were a pair
of great bronze doors a comfortable distance along the corridor, flanked by two glittering guardsmen, but the centurion skirted by them and took us instead to a small black door near the corridor’s end. The guardsman at the door intoned, “They are both in there,” under his breath, and pulled it open.

We entered. The room was small, plainly furnished with a flat board for a desk, several camp chairs, and a nest of cubbyholes along one wall filled with scrolls and rolled documents of various sorts. And
they
were indeed in the room. Sitting behind the flat board of a desk, bent over a lengthy scroll, his body squat and hard, his face the square, blunt, honest face admired by his legionaries, was Titus Flavius Vespasianus, subduer of the Britains under Emperor Claudius; conqueror of the Jews under Emperor Nero; and now himself Emperor of Rome and sole ruler of the Roman Empire, which encompassed most of the known world. Standing by his side, holding a partially unrolled scroll, was his 20-year-old son Domitian, Titus Flavius Domitianus, who had been his father’s presence in Rome while his father was in Judea, and was now Vespasian’s trusted right hand.

I looked over Domitian carefully, for I had heard much about him. He was young; younger even than I. He was handsome, with a square jaw and a shock of dark, curly hair. His feelings, whatever they might be, were reserved and did not show on his face, which was a mask on which a slight, disdainful smile was the only visible emotion.

Some say Domitian was jealous of his brother’s success. Vespasian’s older son Titus had been left behind in Judea to finish the job of subduing the Jews, and had taken and sacked their capital city of Jerusalem and burned their temple the year before, ending once and for all the incessant bothersome revolts of these religious zealots with their “Our god is better than any of your gods” fanaticism.

Some of those who claimed to have an ear into what happened inside the palace walls, those who studied the currents within the imperial household with the diligence of nervous lovers interpreting their beloved’s every sigh and gesture, said with a sneer that Domitian was just as glad not to be facing the rigours – and dangers – of a martial campaign.

There are many who seem to know, and will be glad to whisper to you in great detail, the secrets of the palace; yet I have observed that those who actually do know seldom can be persuaded to speak. That last sentence has a nice flow. I believe I have just written an aphorism of some worth. I would read it aloud to Quintilian, but he would assuredly first compliment me on it and then spend some time telling me how to improve it. And most galling of all: he would be right. I think I shall not show it to him at this time.

The centurion came to attention by Vespasian’s desk. “Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, as directed, General.”

Vespasian looked up. “Ah!” Then he turned to look at me, and I believe I turned white with fright. “And who is this?”

Quintilian stared at me, I swear by Janus, as though he had never seen me before “My scribe Plautus, General,” he said finally.

“A scribe, eh?”

“I also use him as my personal assistant,” Quintilian added.

“I see.” Vespasian glared at me. “You may assist the honourable Quintilian, if he needs your assistance,” he told me sternly. “But you are not to scribe a single word of what transpires here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, your, ah, general,” I managed to get out.

“Good.” Vespasian made a gesture, and the centurion saluted and left the room. “I have a problem,” the emperor of all the known world told Quintilian, lacing his hands
behind his head, leaning back in his chair, and staring at Quintilian through half-closed eyes, “and, from all I have heard of you, I am depending on you to discover the solution for me. Pull over one of those camp chairs, and enlighten my son and me with your wisdom.” He spoke in a measured voice, as though each word were weighed before it was uttered. I suppose that if I knew that my every word would be dissected, parsed, examined and discussed by a sycophantic, back-stabbing collection of Roman courtiers, I, too, would get into the habit of speaking with great care.

Quintilian moved one of the leather-covered camp chairs over to the desk and sat. I squatted on the floor next to him and restrained myself from pulling a wax tablet from my bag.

“I thank you for your faith in my judgment,” my master said, “but I’m not sure I should thank whoever passed on such a glowing account of my small abilities. I am a rhetorician, with some success in pleading cases before the courts of Rome. If it is skill with words you require, I shall be honoured to write speeches for you, as Seneca is said to have done for Nero. But I know nothing of statecraft, or of warfare, or of the numerous intrigues that doubtless cloud the imperial court.”

“And yet when I ask the courtiers who infest this place to find me the wisest man in Rome, those who did not immediately drop to the floor and chant ‘you are, oh mighty Caesar,’ seemed to think that, since Seneca died, it is probably one Marcus Fabius Quintilianus. I also had my staff ask of various learned men whom they would recommend for solving an arcane problem, and your name was mentioned frequently.”

Quintilian smiled a thin smile. “These must not have been friends of mine, General,” he said. “My friends would have assured you of my almost invincible stupidity.”

“He is the one!” Domitian interrupted, leaning forwards,
his knuckles on the desk. “I told you, father, what the Sybil said.” He turned to Quintilian. “My father and I have chosen you for this task. You are expected to comply!”

Vespasian raised a hand. “I apologize for my son,” he said. “He has not yet learned that there are some people to whom you must give orders, and others from whom you may request, but not require, assistance. If you do not feel you are fit for the task, it would waste both of our time for you to attempt it.”

Domitian swallowed and sat down by the side of the desk.

“And just what is the task, General?” Quintilian asked.

“People here in the palace; guards, courtiers, and others, recount that they have been seeing a ghost wandering about these halls. Or so they say. I want you to find out just what it is they are seeing and, if it is a ghost, convince it to go away. And, for that matter, if it isn’t a ghost, convince it to go away.”

“A ghost?”

“Just so,” Vespasian said, looking annoyed. “And not just any ghost. The shade, to be precise, of Gaius Julius Caesar.”

I stifled an exclamation.

“Julius Caesar? He’s been with his fellow gods for over a century now,” Quintilian said.

“A hundred and twelve years,” Vespasian affirmed. “Why, you may ask, if he were to come back, would he return to Nero’s palace; a place he’d never seen in his life built by a man he’d most assuredly despise? I have no answer. But that doesn’t stop him from walking these halls, at least according to those who have seen him.”