A Point of Law (7 page)

“Did you perceive any omens?” I asked Hortalus.

“Not a thing,” he admitted. “It was too cloudy to see the stars, no birds flew in the night, and we heard no thunder from any direction. Of course, since there’s to be no trial, omens were scarcely called for. Marcus Fulvius was no prince, so comets and bloody rains are hardly to be expected.”

“It would have been convenient,” Cato said, “if you’d seen something to stop this convening of the Plebeian Assembly.”

“Actually,” Father put in, “some good legal advice is what is called for now.”

Hortalus turned to me. “Decius, I think you should find out whatever you can to blacken the reputation of Marcus Fulvius. Treason would be nice.”

I managed to shake my way free of Sallustius and the others and made my way to the Temple of Venus in her aspect as death goddess. It
had recently been handsomely restored by Caesar. Although his family traced their descent from Venus Genetrix, Caesar had been generous to any temple of Venus in need of refurbishing.

Asklepiodes arrived shortly after I did, carried on a fine litter by a team of matched Nubians. Hermes and two of the physician’s Egyptian slaves followed. He had grown quite wealthy over the years, and, unlike most of his profession, he did it through sound medical practice not by selling quack cures. He was the only physician to whom I entrusted my lacerations.

“Greetings, Decius Caecilius!” he said, alighting from his conveyance. “Rejoice! So lately returned to Rome; so soon involved in a murder!”

“Not just involved. Accused.”

“And not for the first time. Let’s have a look at the departed.”

The body had been laid out on a bier and washed. With the blood off him Marcus Fulvius looked, if anything, even more ghastly. There is something especially grotesque about a body that has had all the blood drained from it. He was white as a cauliflower, except for the relatively colorful bulges of viscera. Even the gaping wounds were pale pink instead of scarlet. Adding to the strangeness of the scene was the contrast between the ravaged body and the untouched head and limbs.

Asklepiodes made a gesture and the Egyptians came forward. One carried, by a strap over his shoulder, a box elaborately decorated with mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli. This man opened the box and the other, at Asklepiodes’ murmured instructions, removed surgical instruments and began to probe at the wounds. In his own surgery, Asklepiodes might have wielded the instruments himself, but he would never allow the priests of the temple to see a haughty physician using his hands like a common surgeon. As each wound was spread wider he leaned over, examined it, and made wise sounds. Finally, he stepped back.

“Well?” I said.

“No doubt about it, this man is dead.”

“It is good to be in the presence of genius. What else?”

“Someone was being—how shall I put this?—rather delicate about this murder. We have the marks of at least three different blades, any one of which would have been quite sufficient to cause death, but they were used to deal wounds that were grievous, some of them fatal over a matter of hours or days, yet not causing immediate death.”

“Cato noted the inefficiency of the blows,” I said, “and he is not a particularly observant man.”

“The cut to the great vessel of the neck”—Asklepiodes pointed to the wound below the left ear—“would have been fatal within seconds, yet I believe it was dealt last, as if the man were being too leisurely about dying. All these stabs to the abdomen for instance. A single stab here,” he pointed to the apex of the rib arch just below the sternum, “angled slightly upward, would have pierced the heart and brought about immediate death. I have the distinct impression that these men did not
want
their victim to die quickly.”

“You mentioned three weapons.”

“At least three, possibly more.”

“Can you describe them?”

“There were two types: one narrow-bladed, the other broad. I see wounds produced by at least one of these narrow blades. The dagger was no more than an inch wide, its cross-section of a flattened diamond shape. There were at least two broad-bladed daggers used: both were in excess of two inches wide, one made of rather thin steel with a thickened midrib for rigidity. The other was of stouter metal without the midrib. Instead it had three parallel grooves to add strength and rigidity to the blade, as well as to lighten it and confer better balance.” As physician to the gladiators of the Statilian
ludus
, his knowledge of edged weapons was comprehensive.

“Like a soldier’s
pugio?”
I asked.

“
Pugios
have such blades.”

“And all the weapons were double-edged? These cuts look like
they were made by a
sica
.” I referred to the curved, single-edged knife favored by street thugs.

“These were not delivered as cuts. The wounds are very asymmetrical. In each case the blade was stabbed in, then dragged from right to left as it was withdrawn. This is characteristic of a right-handed assailant. The gash thus opened is wide, but not very deep. A typical
sica
cut is symmetrical and deepest in the center.”

“So we are looking at a minimum of three murderers?” I asked.

“At least three knife wielders and possibly more. But there were others involved.”

“How so?”

“You notice that there are no wounds to the hands and arms?”

“I wondered at that.”

“Any man, seeing hostile blades attacking his body, will try to ward them off instinctively. For this many weapons to have landed on his torso, he should have received many cuts on his arms and hands.”

“He was held.”

“Held from behind, hence no wounds in the back.”

“Is it possible he was bound?” I asked.

“A man being killed struggles hard against bindings. It leaves deep ligature marks on the wrists, and this man has none. I believe that, had the body not bled out so thoroughly, we should see bruises on the shoulders and arms, where at least two strong men held him fast while he was stabbed.”

Hermes spoke up. “Might he have been asleep? If he was lying on his back there’d be no wounds there, and by the time he woke up he might have been too weak to defend himself.”

“No,” Asklepiodes said, “these blows were not delivered downward. The angle of entry would be quite different.”

“Besides,” I said, “he was stabbed through his tunic.” I looked around and found a temple slave. “Bring us the dead man’s garments.” He trotted off and in a few minutes I told the physician about the strange events of the last two days.

A few minutes later the slave brought the bloody toga and tunic. He even had the dead man’s sandals. “We were about to burn them,” the slave said.

“I am going to keep these as evidence.” At my request Asklepiodes’ slaves spread the clothes on the floor. There were numerous rents in the tunic, but the toga, though stained, was whole.

“It looks like he wasn’t wearing the toga when he was killed. The murderers must have wrapped him up in it to carry him to the Forum and leave his body where we were sure to find it.”

“Why was he wearing such shabby clothes?” Hermes wanted to know.

“I am wondering that, too. He was of good birth, although he’d won no distinction in Rome. Yesterday, when he berated me in the Forum, his clothes were of good quality. He would have worn his best coming to appear in court today. Hermes, I want you to take these home with you. They might prove significant later on.”

“Carry these rags?” he exclaimed with horror. “They’re unclean!”

“You’re ready enough to shed other peoples’ blood. I don’t see why you should object to getting a little of it on you. It’s all but dry, anyway.”

“I’m not going to touch this stuff,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t care how many purifications the priest performs.”

“I hate superstition,” I said. “All right, there should be a sack around here someplace. Get a temple slave to bag this up for you first.” He went off in search of one.

“Sometimes I regret giving that boy his freedom,” I said to Asklepiodes. “Now he thinks he’s too good to run errands.”

“He’s grown into a fine-looking young man though. I’ve missed seeing him practice at the school in recent months.”

“He should be glad I never sent him to the mines.”

“I trust your lady, Julia, is well? Is she still bothered by her family complaint?” By this he meant the famous difficulty the Caesars had
with conception and pregnancy. Since our marriage Julia had conceived three times and miscarried by the fourth month in all three cases.

“Still. I try to comfort her, tell her that this is her heritage and there is no disgrace in it, but she feels humiliated nonetheless.”

He shook his head. “I do hope she is not going to unscrupulous physicians and wise women to cure the problem. They are all frauds, and their remedies are sometimes dangerous.”

“I warn her not to, but I fear she does it anyway.”

“I know of no treatment for infertility other than maintaining her health through a good diet and moderate living. Beyond that, one can only sacrifice to the gods of fertility and hope for their favor.”

“I thank you for your concern, old friend.”

At that moment Hermes returned with a bag and a slave. With the gory clothes bundled up, we took our leave of Asklepiodes and left the temple.

Julia was ready when I got back home. “What’s this about you being involved in a murder?” she said, even as the door swung open. She caught sight of Hermes behind me. “And what’s in that bag?”

“Just some bloody clothes,” he said. “What the murdered man was wearing.”

“You will not bring any such thing into this house!”

“Oh, come now, my dear,” I said reasonably, “I’ve bled all over this house and no harm has come of it.”

“
Your
blood attracts nothing but flies,” she answered. “A murdered man’s garments can attract his vengeful spirit, and that man wasn’t well-disposed toward you when he was alive!”

I turned to Hermes. “Go stash that bag with the tavern keeper down the street. He won’t ask questions.” Most of my neighbors were under obligation to me. “And don’t hang around drinking either. We have a lot still to do today.” I went on inside.

Julia had laid out baked fish, sliced melon, and bread. Between
bites I told her of the morning’s doings. She didn’t pale much when I described the condition of the body. She’d seen worse.

“So it wasn’t just one man out for a reputation,” she said. “I didn’t think so. But now there seems to be a whole crowd involved. A conspiracy. I think it’s to be expected if it’s a move against your family.”

“Possibly against the great families in general,” I pointed out.

She raised a hand to her brow. “Let’s try to limit this. If it’s a prelude to class war, it’s too big for us.”

“Do you know anything about this tribune, Manilius?” Julia had spent far more time in Rome than I in recent years.

“Just another young climber. Do you think he’s involved?”

“He was on the scene awfully fast, and of all the tribunes, he’s the only one I’ve heard of who has declared neither for Caesar nor Pompey.”

“That
is
odd. Will you attend this
contio
he’s called?”

“My presence might be seen as disruptive. Besides, I want to use whatever time I have left free to investigate. If he gets a decision to go to trial before the whole assembly, he may call for my arrest.” Usually, that meant that I would be confined to the house of one of the praetors until trial. I could always flee the City; but that would be an admission of guilt and I would just be tried in absentia, found guilty, and exiled.

I pushed away the plates. “Now tell me what you learned yesterday.”

She picked at her own lunch, which consisted mostly of fruit. I wondered if this were another of her fertility-inducing fads. The pome-granites suggested I was right.

“I called on Fulvia yesterday evening. As I suspected, she was glad of company. Clodius’s old friends are mostly staying away from town, and she won’t be received in decent society. Her brother-in-law, Appius, is even making noises about taking the house back.”

“Unfortunate woman,” I said idly.

“She’s brought it on herself. Anyway, she says she was about to give up and go back home to Baiae, but now she’s thought better of it since she’s to remarry.”

“I don’t expect to see Antonius back from Gaul anytime soon,” I said, raising a cup of her heavily watered wine.

“But she isn’t to marry Antonius. She’s going to marry that man you asked about this morning: Curio.”

I all but choked in midswallow. “What!”

“Exactly,” she said, pleased with her timing and effect. “Curio was one of Clodius’s friends who stayed in Rome. He’s on the rise, which is where Fulvia likes to catch them. He’s standing for Tribune of the People, and if he’s elected, he can’t leave Rome for two consecutive nights during his year in office, so she can’t very well leave Rome, can she?”

“But what about her betrothal to Antonius?”

“Neither of them is terribly serious about such things. They are two of a kind. Besides, Antonius is in Gaul while Curio is here. That makes a difference.”

I knew Antonius well, and I knew that, if news of losing Fulvia to another man bothered him at all, he’d just console himself by taking another Gallic woman into his tent, to join the five or six who were already there.

“Did you learn anything about her brother, Fulvius?”

“She said that, at home, he’d been a layabout who accomplished nothing. He’d written her some time ago that he intended to come to Rome to become Clodius’s client, but Clodius was killed and Fulvius stayed in Baiae. Apparently, if he couldn’t get a great man to be his patron, he didn’t think he had much chance of rising in Roman politics.”

“So why did he come here?”

“She said that a few months ago he wrote her, said he was coming after all, and hinted that he now had powerful patronage.”

“But he wouldn’t say who it was?”

“He said that she’d learn soon enough. After he moved here he
called on her a few times; but there was little affection between them, and he didn’t talk about anything important.”