The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (3 page)

“Sure,” I said.

“And,” he went on, “Licinius has been following this whole campaign, buying prisoners at the pit head, so to speak; he hadn’t left last evening, waiting for half a dozen of his convoy escorts to turn up, and I’ll send someone just to check he’s still here in camp.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He shrugged.

“So, that’s two strong leads for me to follow up,” I said. “I’ll go away and have a think about it, and catch up with you later today.”

He grinned. “Don’t pull a muscle in your head,” he replied. “Like I told you, you’ve got till tomorrow evening.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but it shouldn’t take me as long as that. Thought, you see; all I’ve got to do is sit down and think about it for an hour or so, and I’ll have the answer for you, smooth and warm as a hen’s egg.”

I do say some stupid things, don’t I?

But, like I said, I needed the job; so I waited till he was out of sight, then went straight to work. Solving mysteries is all about prepositions, the first being how? Acer had had his head bashed in, with spectacular thoroughness. First question therefore had to be, what with? No way a human fist could’ve scrunched bone like that; but there were no blood-spattered rocks, sticks, iron bars or heavy implements anywhere to be seen. Conclusion; the killer either took the weapon away with him, or hid it somewhere.

Well, I could search the whole camp for a brain-speckled rock; but I wasn’t in the mood, so I looked for something that’d give me a clue. Shuffling round on my belly isn’t my idea of a big time, but I did find something down there on the ground that set me thinking; a long row of little round dimples pressed into the dirt, next to a tent where they stored great big skeins of horsehair.

A couple of off-duty soldiers were lounging about nearby. I decided that Scipio would want me to make whatever use I felt necessary of all available facilities, and called them over. They didn’t seem thrilled with the job I gave them, which basically consisted of a lot of scrabbling about in dirt and splintered wood. Their bad luck; they shouldn’t have joined.

Anyhow; I had a hunch about the how, and no other leads whatsoever. Rather than waste time, I made up my mind to skip resolving how, and make a start on when.

Roman army camps; they’re crowded, noisy and smelly, and there’s always someone about. But all Scipio had said was that Acer’s body “was found”, by the first patrol of the day, just after reveille. Helpful.

Yes, really. When is a doddle in an army camp, because at night, when there’s nobody about, they have sentries. A little bit of bluff with the duty officer got me a look at the previous day’s duty roster, and I sent a runner to fetch me the decurion in charge of the night watch; he in turn gave me the names of the sentries who should’ve been guarding that sector of the camp, and I had them brought up to see me.

No, they assured me, they hadn’t seen or heard anything. I told them I knew they were lying and why. They panicked and said they’d tell me the truth; they hadn’t seen or heard anything, really.

I believed them; but it was awkward, because if they genuinely hadn’t seen anybody alive or dead (and they’d have noticed a dead body, for sure) it meant that Acer arrived at the place where he died and was killed in the short period of time between the sentries’ last stroll down the alley, and the end of the nightwatch, which was when the body was found, according to Scipio. I worked out how long that period was by walking the route myself with my hand on my wrist, counting heartbeats. Figuring that reveille must be the cut-off point – the whole camp seething with people
getting up and rushing about – I ended up coming to the conclusion that Acer must’ve left his tent, which was where he’d last been seen, five thousand heartbeats before reveille, in order to have time to walk from his tent to the place where he was killed; furthermore, that he was killed pretty well as soon as he got there. Implication; the killer knew he’d be coming, and was waiting for him.

Which made it interesting; since the killer had to get there too, unless his assigned sleeping-place was in the alley itself – and nobody matched those criteria; I checked. The alleyway was formed by the stores on one side and the plunder-stash on the other, and it goes without saying that both of those were heavily guarded at night against the depredations of light-fingered squaddies, so no chance of anybody sneaking in during the day and hiding till Acer arrived.

Fine, I thought; so I went and talked to the guards. The quartermaster, in charge of the stores, swore by the River that he hadn’t seen or heard, et cetera. More to the point, he had four Greek clerks who spread their bedrolls out in the four entrances to the stores compound, a simple and praiseworthy precaution. On the other side, the soldiers who’d guarded the plunder were equally adamant, which accounted for three points of the compass; “and you don’t have to worry about anybody coming from the north,” one of them added with a grin, while the other two sniggered.

“Don’t I?” I said. “Why’s that?”

The soldier smiled and pointed.

“All right,” I said, “there’s a palisade of high stakes. What about it?”

“That’s the animal pen,” the soldier said. “Where all the captured livestock’s kept; horses, loads of mules, several dozen camels –”

“And the elephant,” his mate reminded him.

“And the elephant. Bloody thing,” the soldier added.
“Never goes to sleep, and a sneeze’ll set it off crashing about. No way anybody could sneak in through there without a hell of a racket.”

Well, that ruled out access from either side; which meant Acer, and Acer’s killer, must’ve come up the alley, during the period (nine hundred heartbeats) between the last time the nightwatch passed the entrance to the alleyway, and reveille. I had when.

I was doing well. I’d got when, I had a gut feeling about how, and Scipio had presumably given me all I needed for a shortlist of candidates for why. Trouble was, all those together had to make up who, and they didn’t.

Well; I supposed I could get rid of one suspect, one way or the other. I went and found Licinius, the slave dealer. His compound was just inside the camp (he was allowed inside as a special privilege by the camp prefect, who owed him money), and I found him perched on the rail like a small boy at a fair, flanked by two Syrian clerks, taking inventory.

“Bloody sun,” he said. “You’d think they’d be used to it, since they live in this godsforsaken country. But apparently not; it boils their brains inside their heads, and they die. After I’ve paid for them,” he added bitterly. “Six since the battle; that’s a lot of money.”

I sighed. “Some people have no consideration,” I told him. Then I reached into my purse and pulled something out for him to see. “This belong to you?” I asked.

He took it and examined it; a longish iron nail with a ring passed through its head. “No,” he said.

“You know what it is.”

“Course I do, it’s a tethering-peg. We use them to peg down the stock en route. But this isn’t one of mine.”

“You can tell?”

He nodded. “This is army issue,” he said. “I don’t use anything that’s military specification. Saves bother, see;
otherwise, my stuff would have a bad habit of getting mixed in with government property, since I spend so much time around army camps, and I’d never see it again. That’s why all my pegs are wood, with bronze rings.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’s that, then. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother,” he assured me. “So,” he added, “where did you get this from?”

“Under the body of Vitellius Acer,” I told him. “Look, you can see the blood on the spike, and this bit of frayed rope tied to the ring. At least, I’m assuming it’s blood; could be brains, or –”

He gave me a very nasty look. “You implying I had something to do with that?”

I shrugged. “Well,” I said, “I’d heard you weren’t the best of friends.”

“You could say that,” he replied. “But it wasn’t me stabbed him, so you’re wasting your time. I spent the whole of last night playing knucklebones with Caius Laelius – you know, General Scipio’s bestest friend in all the world? Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Quite some alibi. “Who won?” I asked.

“He did. You seriously think I’m dumb enough to gamble with Laelius and win?”

Proving nothing, I reflected, as I walked back; a rich man like Licinius doesn’t do his own murdering. Interesting that he’d said it wasn’t me stabbed him. I’d shown him the tethering-pin with blood all over it, and he’d assumed it was the murder weapon; assumed that confronting him with it was meant to be my winning throw. But Acer hadn’t been stabbed, of course.

Quick detour, to get a chicken. Next call after that, inevitably, was the camp blacksmith.

“One of mine,” he confirmed. “I remember doing them;
drew down a load of busted spearheads we picked up off the field at Numantia. Can’t waste good material.”

“Quite,” I said. All his hammers were neatly arranged in iron hoops stuck into the side of the log on which his anvil rested. Their heads were all dry and shiny with use, apart from one, which was spotted with rust, and the wooden stem was swollen and wet. Licinius’ father had been a blacksmith in Apulia, and the camp smithy backed on to the stores. Only one door, of course, but a very wide smokehole in the roof. “You just do army work, or do you sometimes do civvy jobs as well?”

“Depends on how we’re fixed,” he said. “If there’s nothing particular on, I can fit in a few bits and pieces now and again.”

“Do anything for Licinius the slaver recently?”

He frowned. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Sort of. He sent one of his blokes over, said the tyre on one of his carts had sprung and could I weld it? I said no, too busy; he said that’s all right, I used to be a smith myself. Fine, I said, you fetch it in here, you’re welcome to use that anvil over there and anything you like. Did a good job, too, for a foreigner.”

High praise from a smith. “That was good-natured of you,” I said. “I’d heard your lot are pretty touchy about letting other people use their gear.”

He grinned. “Some smiths are like that,” he said. “Not me. Just as well,” he went on, “because he broke the head off my two-pound crosspein hammer. Good as gold about it, though, he was. Said he’d get the wheelwright to put the head on again, and he did. A bloke brought it back this morning first thing, and there it is in the rack.”

A bloke, I noted, not the ex-smith himself. “It’s all wet,” I said.

“Well, of course,” he replied indulgently. “When you put a stem on a hammer you leave it in a tub of water overnight to soak. Swells the wood, see, to get a better grip.”

I thanked him and left. Two-pound crosspein; doesn’t mean anything to me, either. But the rusty hammer was a substantial piece of metal, I dreaded to think what it could do to a man’s head.

Gnatho. Handsome and rich; not the sort to do his own dirty work, either. Scipio had as good as told me to suspect him, so I did.

If you want to know who’s who in an army camp, ask the pay clerks.

“Oh, I know who he is all right,” the chief clerk said. “And yes, there’s a poor relation of his on the roll – Vipsanius Gnatho, junior tribune attached to the Spanish auxiliary. Good man, as far as I know; won the headless spear at Numantia, no less.”

I whistled. Headless spears aren’t given away free, like nuts at a bad play; they’re only awarded for conspicuous valour and saving the life of a fellow soldier. “I didn’t hear about that,” I said.

“Pretty strange business,” the clerk said, “considering who it was he saved.”

“Go on.”

He grinned; born showman. I hate those. “Vitellius Acer,” said the clerk. “You know, him that was killed last night. Waste of time saving him, really,” he added.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “I thought Acer and Servius Gnatho hated each other.”

“They do,” the clerk said. “Or did; whatever. But this cousin, Vipsanius Gnatho; seems like Acer was riding round in his fancy chariot just when the enemy sent out a sortie. Sly about it, they were, first thing our boys knew was when their archers opened up on our sappers coming off shift. Anyhow, Acer’s riding along like Zeus Almighty in his chariot, suddenly Vipsanius jumps up behind him, grabs hold of him by
the shoulders and throws him off, then jumps down after him; broke a leg by all accounts. Anyhow a heartbeat later, two dozen Spanish mercenaries hop up from behind a low wall and start shooting. They reckon if Vipsanius hadn’t got Acer down off that chariot, he’d have been more full of points than a hedgehog.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Spanish mercenaries? I thought they were on our side.”

He laughed. “They’re on anybody’s side who pays,” he said. “Best light infantry in the world, some people reckon, but personally I wouldn’t give them the time of day.”

Well, that showed me the direction I had to go. “Thanks for your help,” I said. “I wonder, could you tell me where I’d find Caius Laelius?”

Now I’ll tell you something I bet you don’t know about the Romans; their ponderous, galumphing excuse for a language doesn’t have a word for “Yes”. Instead, when they want to express assent, they’ve got to say things like certainly or I agree or even by Hercules! Bizarre; but at least it explains, to my satisfaction at least, why Scipio and Laelius learned Greek. Not, as they’ll try and persuade you in Rome, so that the dazzling young general and his trusty sidekick could enjoy the glories of our literature. As if. No; the only possible explanation is that, using Greek, Laelius would be able to express agreement with every damnfool thing Scipio said without having to overtax his dismally limited imagination.

Caius Laelius, Scipio’s best buddy, was a chubby, curly man who could’ve been anywhere between fifteen and forty. As soon as I told him I was investigating Acer’s death, he was so eager to help he was practically frothing at the mouth.

“Sure I know Licinius,” he said, nodding eagerly. “I bought a whole bunch of field-hands off him just after the battle, and he’s looking after getting them shipped back
home for me. Made me a good price, too; but I can’t say as I took to him much.”

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. “You can’t dislike him too much, if you sat up all night playing knucklebones with the man.”