The King's Gambit (3 page)

"I take it that the fellow's been under investigation for some time. Who's been in charge of the investigation? If I must handle this, I'll want to see all the records and documents that have been compiled on this man to date."

"Ah, well," Opimius said, and I feared the worst. "It seems, ah, that, since these matters touch on state security, those documents have been declared secret. They are to be put under Senate seal and deposited for safekeeping in the Temple of Vesta."

"Are you serious?" I barked. "Am I really expected to conduct an investigation while important evidence is withheld from me?"

My colleagues found something of absorbing interest on the Curia ceiling and studied it intently. Obviously, there was only to be the form of an investigation, not its substance. State security! The meaning was clear: Senatorial reputations were at stake, and the most junior member of the elected government was being sent out to sweep the whole untidy mess into a dark room and close the door after it.

"We serve the Senate and People of Rome," Rutilius said, when I had calmed a bit.

"Exactly," I said. "All right, Junius, tell me whatever scraps of information I am permitted to know."

"The late Paramedes of Antioch," Junius droned, "was an importer of wine and olive oil and owned a large warehouse, now incinerated, on the Tiber, near the Circus."

"Wait," I interjected as he paused for breath. "If he was a foreigner, he couldn't have owned property in the city outright. Who was his citizen partner?"

"I was just coming to that," Junius sniffed. "As title holder for his city property, Paramedes had as partner one Sergius Paulus, freedman."

That was more like it. That man Junius so blithely dismissed as S. Paulus, freedman, was one of the four or five richest men in Rome at that time. Paulus, once a slave of an illustrious family, had risen to the position of steward while in servitude. Upon his master's death, he was willed his freedom and a generous sum of money. With this stake, he had put his freedman's expertise to work and made many shrewd investments, quickly multiplying his wealth. At this time, he owned so many farms, ships, shops and slaves that there was really no way to calculate his wealth, except that it was fairly certain that he was not quite as rich as General Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was as rich as a Pharaoh.

"What's a moneybags like Paulus doing in partnership with a petty Greek importer?" I wondered aloud.

"No opportunity for making money is too small for base cash-breeders like Sergius Paulus," Opimius said with contempt. No patrician, no plebeian noble, can match the snobbery of a jumped-up commoner like Opimius.

"I'll call on him this afternoon," I said. "Junius, be so good as to send a Senate messenger to the house of Paulus and tell him to expect me. Do you think I could pry a lictor loose to accompany me?" Nothing impresses a Roman with one's power and
gravitas
more than a lictor bearing the fasces. It is truly amazing how a simple bundle of rods tied about an ax can invest a simple mortal with the majesty and might of the Senate, the People of Rome and all the gods of the Pantheon.

"They're all assigned," Junius said. I shrugged. I'd just put on my new toga and hope for the best. The meeting broke up. Opimius was to get a full report on the fire, which was, of course, in his district. I was to look into the murder of Paramedes, which had occurred in my district, and call upon Sergius Paulus, who likewise lived in my district. Rutilius was going to flee back to the Trans-Tiber and hope that none of this would touch him.

I cursed piously as I left the Curia. I would loiter a few minutes to allow the messenger time to reach Sergius's house, then proceed there myself, stopping at my house on the way to change into my new toga. It would be a long trudge and I would have to forgo my customary bath and midday meal. It was not shaping up into a good day. There had been days when I had had to investigate ten murders before noon, but a hundred ordinary homicides were preferable to one which involved high personages.

There was also the little matter of my career, which could come to an abrupt and premature end should I mishandle this matter. So, I reflected, could my life.

The house of Sergius Paulus stood on a back street in the Subura, flanked by a pair of tremendous tenements. I was resplendent in my new toga, whitened with fuller's earth and only a little dirtied by my progress through Rome's unsanitary winter streets.

The janitor conducted me into the atrium and I studied the decorations while a slave ran to fetch the master. In contrast to the squalid streets outside, all within was rich and sumptuous. The mosaics were exquisite, the lamps were masterpieces of the bronze-worker's art, the walls were covered with frescoes superbly copied from Greek originals. All the stone in evidence was fine marble and the roof-beams smelled of cedar.

I had not expected this. While it is true that freedmen often possess great riches, they seldom have taste commensurate with their wealth. I speculated that Paulus had had the sense to buy a good Greek decorator, or perhaps he had a wellborn and educated wife.

Sergius himself arrived with commendable promptness. He was a portly man with a round, hospitable face. His tunic was of plain cut, but its material and dye probably cost more than my whole house and its contents and, probably, its occupants.

"Decius Caecilius Metellus, how honored I am to make your acquaintance!" He grasped my hand and his grip was firm despite the pudginess of his hand. His palm had never suffered manual labor or practice of arms. "You look starved. I know you must be here because of that terrible business this morning, but do let me offer you a bite of lunch before we get down to serious matters." I accepted gladly and he led me through his lavish peristyle and into the dining room. There was something instantly likable about the man.

I realize that this may sound strange coming from a member of the nobility, a class with a traditional contempt for the new-rich who have made their wealth from commerce and speculation, instead of decently through inheritance, but in this as in many another attitude, I have always differed from the general run of my class. My beloved Rome is made up of a multitude of human types, and I have never sought to banish any of them from my company on a basis other than personal behavior or poor character, or, sometimes, because I simply didn't like them.

Sergius's "bite of lunch" consisted of a banquet that would have done the Senate proud at the reception of a new ambassador. There were pickled peacocks' tongues and sows' udders stuffed with Libyan mice, deep-fried. There were lampreys, oysters, truffles and other rare, exotic delicacies in endless profusion. Whoever handled Sergius's interior decoration did not moderate his table. It was ostentatious and vulgar and utterly delicious. I did my noble best to do justice to the meal, but Sergius, a notable trencherman, surpassed me easily. Father would have been shocked. The wines were as lavish as the food, and by the end of the meal I was most unprofessionally jovial.

"Now," I began, "the matter touching which the Senate has sent me here to make inquiry about." I stopped abruptly and repeated the sentence mentally, to see whether it made any sense.

"I won't hear of it," Sergius protested. "I would be a poor host were I not to offer you a bath. After all, your business is detaining you from attending the public baths. It happens that I have a modest bath right here in the house. Would you care to join me?"

Nothing loath, I followed him to the rear of the house. A pair of sturdy slaves flanked each of us to prevent accidents. They seemed well-drilled in the art of getting master and guests from table to bath without unpleasantness. Bath attendants divested us of our clothing at the entrance of the bath. Predictably, Paulus's "modest bath" proved as much of an understatement as his "bite of lunch." Private baths were still rare in those days, but since they are now common I will not bore you with an account of its size and appointments, except to note that the bath attendants were all young Egyptian girls. Sergius was making up for his years as a slave in great style.

"Now, my friend Sergius Paulus," I said as we relaxed in the hot pool after a brief plunge in the cold one, "I really must get down to business. Serious business. Murder, sir, and arson, and a partner of yours who happens to be newly dead." Suddenly, one of the Egyptian girls was beside me in the water, naked as a fish and handing me a goblet of wine that gleamed with droplets of condensation. Sergius was flanked by two such, and I refrained from speculating about what their hands were doing under the water. I took a drink and forged ahead.

"Sergius, what have been your dealings with the man called Paramedes of Antioch?"

"On a personal level, almost none at all." Sergius leaned back and put his arms around the wet shoulders of his two attendants. Their hands were still beneath the water and he wore a blissful expression. "On a business level, he was just a foreigner who needed a city patron. He wanted to buy a warehouse to store his imports; oil and wine, I believe it was. I have a number of such foreign clients in the city. They pay me a percentage of their annual earnings. I don't believe I ever saw the man except on the day he came to me and we went before the Praetor Peregrinus to legalize the arrangement. That must have been about two years ago. Pity the fellow's dead, but Rome is a dangerous city, you know."

"I know better than most." One of the fetching little Egyptians took my half-empty cup and gave me a full one. I certainly couldn't fault the service.

"This business about arson at the warehouse, though, that does disturb me, even though my quasi-ownership is purely a legal formality. Nasty business, arson. I hope you're able to apprehend the felon responsible and give him to the beasts in the amphitheater."

"Responsible for the arson, or for the murder?" I asked.

"Both. I should think the two were connected, shouldn't you?"

He was a shrewd man, and I obviously wasn't going to trick him with leading questions. We left the hot bath and the attendants oiled us, then scraped us clean with strigils, then back into the hot bath for a while, then to the massage tables. No wispy Egyptians at the tables, though. Instead, the masseurs were great strapping blacks with hands that could crush bricks.

"Do you know," I asked Sergius when I had breath again after the Nubian pounding, "whether Paramedes had an arrangement of
hospitium
with any Roman citizen?"

Paulus seemed to think for a while. "Not that I recall," he said at length. "If he'd had one, that family will be claiming the body for burial, as is customary. But then, if he had a
hospes
in the city, he wouldn't have needed to come to me for patronage, would he?" It was a good point. Another possible lead eliminated, then.

Sergius saw me to the door, with an arm across my shoulders. "Decius Caecilius, I am most happy that you have paid me this visit, even under such distressing circumstances. You must most certainly come visit me again, just for the pleasure of your company. I entertain often, and if I send you an invitation, I hope you will be good enough to attend."

"I should be more than honored, Sergius," I answered sincerely. Besides, my financial condition was such in those days that I could not afford to pass up such a meal as Sergius would undoubtedly provide.

"Although this was an official visit, it has become much more a social one, so allow me to bestow this parting guest-gift." He handed me something heavy discreetly wrapped in linen and I thanked him courteously as I stepped out onto the street.

I walked, somewhat unsteadily, toward the little Temple of Mercury at the end of the street. The priest hailed me from the top of the steps and for the next half hour I had to listen to his complaints about the shocking state of the temple, of its desperate need for repair and restoration. Such projects are usually undertaken by wealthy men rather than the state, and I suggested that he approach his well-fixed neighbor down the street. As I glanced that way, I noticed an elaborate palanquin had been set down before the street door of Sergius's house. As I watched, someone came from the house, heavily veiled, and climbed into the palanquin.

The slaves, a matched team of Numidians, closed the curtains and picked up the litter. By the time they passed the temple, they were moving at a smart trot, with the skillful broken step that makes for a comfortable ride. I watched closely, partly because I hoped someday to be able to afford such fine transportation myself, but also because I was curious about who might be leaving the house of Sergius Paulus thus clandestinely. I was able to make out little except that the palanquin was embroidered in the Parthian fashion, with silk thread. Very costly.

Like any other citizen, I made my way home on my own sore feet. There, I changed from my new toga into the one I had begun the day with and unwrapped the guest-gift. It was a cup of massive, solid silver, richly worked. I pondered it for a while. Was it a bribe? If so, what was I being bribed for? I locked the cup away in a chest. My day was not over yet. I still had to view the body and effects of Paramedes.

Mercifully, the house occupied by the late Paramedes was not far from my own. Truthfully, Rome is not a very large city compared with others such as Alexandria and Antioch. Its population is large, but stacked in layers in the towering
insulae
, which makes for efficient use of space at some considerable sacrifice of comfort, beauty and, above all, safety.

Paramedes's house was the ground floor of a tenement, quite decently appointed. Usually, in such houses the running water reaches no higher than the first floor, so that the wealthy occupy the desirable ground-floor apartments, the artisans live on the second and third levels, and the poor eke out their miserable lives crowded into tiny rooms beneath the eaves.

The door was guarded by a hired watchman, who stepped aside for me when I displayed my Senate seal. The house was like a thousand others in Rome. It seemed that the man had owned no slaves, and there was little in the way of housekeeping equipment present beyond a few jugs and plates. Any papers the man had had were already taken. The body was sprawled in the bedroom, as if he had been awakened by a sound from the front of the house, had gone to the bedroom door to investigate and had been met by the assassin's dagger. There was a gaping rent slanting from the breastbone to the side, and the floor was awash with blood. Something about the wound seemed peculiar, although I knew I must have observed hundreds of such injuries in war, in the arena and in the Roman streets.

I turned my attention to the little pile of personal effects that had been left on a table. There was an old dagger, not very sharp. A statuette of Venus and one of Priapus; a set of dice, loaded; and an amulet of cast bronze shaped like a camel's head. The reverse side of the amulet had lettering engraved in the bronze, but the light had grown too dim to make it out. I swept the items into my napkin and tied them up.

I informed the watchman that I was taking the effects into my keeping for the nonce. He said that the undertaker's men would come for the body after sunset the next day. If nobody claimed the corpse within the customary three days, it would be buried at state expense in the common burial-ground, along with the corpses of slaves and of other foreigners without patrons. These mass burial pits, which made the whole city redolent in summer, occupied the ground now covered by the beautiful gardens of Maecenas. This is one improvement of the old city of which I have always thoroughly approved.