The King's Gambit(43)

“Speaking of that unfortunate man,” I said, “how did he meet his end?”

Father’s eyebrows went up. “How should I know? You’re the one who was not home to receive the vigiles’ report. Go ask the captain. He’s here someplace.”

I hurried off to push my way among Father’s clients in search of the captain of the vigiles of my own ward. I found him sleepily downing some leftover cakes along with some elderly wine, heavily watered. I grasped his arm and whirled him to face me.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Well, sir, you weren’t home and so I came here to the home of the praetor your father, just as you said for me to do, should you not be able to—”

“Splendid!” I all but shouted, drawing some strange looks from Father’s other clients. “You’ve remembered your duty admirably. Now, what happened last night?”

He began to tell me of the events of the night before. He had been stomping through the streets at the head of his bucket-bearing men when a hysterical slave ran up to him and begged him to come at once. An important man had been killed, by violence.

“How was Paulus killed?” I asked.

“Strangled, sir, with a bowstring garrote, it looked like. Just like that freed gladiator a few days ago, now that I think about it.”

“Say you so?” I commented. “What was the condition of his household?”

“Didn’t check. I posted a guard at the door and ordered that no one was to leave; then I ran to your house. From there I came here. It hasn’t been an hour since Paulus’s slave stopped me.”

I tried to think, a difficult process since I had not yet shaken off the effects of the previous night. What had Claudia slipped into the wine? I recalled the bitter undertaste now. It was just like a Claudian to adulterate one of the finest wines in existence. In an odd way, it was comforting to know that I had been drugged. It gave me an excuse for behaving like a demented satyr.

I returned to my father’s side. “Father, I must conduct an investigation at once. May I borrow your lictors? I have to get there before the officials show up. The slaves will have to be confined until the murderer is identified. There will be a terrible scramble to lay hands on Paulus’s wealth. I don’t believe he had a son.”

“Very well.” Father gestured and two lictors joined us. “I shall be there myself sometime today, as Urban Praetor. What a tangled mess this will be. It always is when one of these rich freedmen dies. No proper family to lay claim to his property. Had he a wife?”

“I shall find out,” I promised.

“Be off with you, then. Have a report ready for me when I arrive.”

As we left Father’s house, my clients trooping behind, I told one of the lictors, “Go to the Ludus of Statilius Taurus and summon the physician Asklepiodes. Fetch him to the house of Sergius Paulus.” The man marched calmly away. It is useless to demand that lictors run. They are too conscious of their own dignity.

At least now I had something to distract my mind from my ringing head and heaving stomach. The news would be all over the city soon. Murder was not uncommon in Rome, but the murder of prominent men is always a matter for scandal. There had been a time, not so many years before, when no one would have blinked at this. During the proscriptions, Senators and equites had been slain in droves. Informers had been given a part of the seized property of a denounced traitor, so any rich man was at risk. But men have short memories and more recent years had been peaceful and prosperous. The murder of the richest freedman in Rome would occupy the conversation of idlers for days.

The vigile leaned against the doorpost of Paulus’s house, half-asleep, when we arrived. Blinking and yawning, he assured me that nobody had been past him since his captain had gone off in search of me. He stood aside and I passed through, along with my lictor and clients. I turned to Burrus, my old soldier.

“Check through every room. Find whether there are other exits or windows large enough for a man to crawl through.” He nodded and strode purposefully off. A fat, distressed-looking man came rushing up, bowing and sweating.

“Sir, I am so glad you have come. This is terrible, terrible. My master, Sergius, has been murdered.”

“So I’ve heard. “And you are … ?”

“Postumus, the majordomo, sir. Please come—”

I cut him off with a wave of the hand. “Assemble all the house slaves at once in the peristylium,” I ordered. “Has anyone left the house since the body was discovered?”

“Absolutely not, sir. And the household staff are already gathered, if you will come with me.”